Get Back To Where You Once Belonged

For two weeks, at the end of August through the beginning of September, I returned to where it all began. As a trainer for stage (stage: the first nine weeks a new volunteer spends in country, learning language, skills, and techniques they then employ throughout their service), I was sent to Porto-Novo, the capital of Benin, to instruct the in-coming group of TEFL volunteers how to teach English in Benin.

At first, it was just plain weird. Almost immediately upon arrival, I was flooded with memories of my own time during stage – and most of them were uncomfortable and unpleasant. Porto-Novo, in my calm, subjective opinion, is an absolute wasteland. It is crowded, dirty, and filled with the most annoying racism I’ve ever encountered in this country. In Benin, the word for white-person in most southern local language dialects is “Yovo,” (but its usage can be extended to include anymore who is foreign, associates with white people, or has occidental behaviors or mannerism). EVERYWHERE I went, some Porto-Novan - be it man, woman, or child so small you can barely believe it can talk - screamed and pointed, “Yovo, yovo, bonsoir!” This was definitely an unhappy memory I know that I suppressed, because as soon as it heard their taunting on repeat, skipping away like a broken record, all the stress and frustration came rushing back to me, awakened and renewed. Everywhere smells like an odd mixture of urine, burning plastic, and things being fried in hot oil. I was there in the midst of the rainy season, so all the cracked and broken dirt roads were overflowing with red sludge and mud. I quickly realized that the Peace Corps Administration must hold stage in Porto-Novo for the same reason Frank Sinatra felt people chose to live in thrive in New York City: if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere.

But I wasn’t there to judge the beauty and glamour of life in Porto-Novo. I had a very specific job: teaching new “stagiares” how to manage Beninese preteens while simultaneously teaching them basic English vocabulary and sentence structures. No small task, especially when you consider that a typical class size amounts to around fifty students and the vast majority of them despise English class. As I walked through the gates on my first day of training and onto the campus of CEG Davie, my old stage stomping grounds, I was taken aback my how full-circle I’d come. Everything looked exactly the same as I remembered it: bare, cement classrooms connected into a broad U-shape with venders hawking candy and a variety of oil-fried food options just outside the compound’s gates. Stagiares locked their Peace Corps-issued Trek bikes to the same trees we used last year. And as the newbies filed in, one after the other, they had the hard, worn, sleep-deprived look I know must have been across my face the entirety of my own stage experience. The more things change; the more they stay the same.

Teaching teachers was quite a role-reversal for me. Most days, my job was to sit in on two-hour long lessons and critique the stagiare teacher on his/her performance in front of the class for the day. Going in, I was completely intimidated by the whole idea of it: What do I say? How do I say it? What’s the most polite way to give someone bad news? But quickly, I got the hang out it. I found that most people actually don’t mind (even welcomed) criticism, so long as I had ideas to offer them on how to fix their mistakes. Easy enough, seeing as I had an entire year of in-class experiences under my belt to draw from. Most of the critiques were simple, basic things you’d expect: project your voice more, be stern when disciplining, move around the classroom while teaching, or bring in teaching aids to help your class better understand the material. I have to say, over the two weeks I worked as a trainer, I saw all the stagiares improve and gain confidence in themselves in front of the classroom. I even took away some great ideas I observed from watching them teach. Two weeks later, as I watched them all swear-into the Peace Corps, reciting he same oaths of service I avowed a year before, I could not have been prouder. Working as a trainer for stage was a rewarding experience, despite the location, and I’m glad to say that I’ve done it, but I will not be going back for seconds next year. You have my word on that.

Farewell to a Dear Friend

After my two weeks in Porto-Novo, all I wanted to do my go back to my village. I wanted to sleep in my bed, read my books, and shower with my own bucket of well water. But most of all, I wanted to see my cat. I really missed him after being away for almost three weeks. As soon as I got home, I opened the door, expecting to see Neebo’s happy little mug, but instead … there was nothing. I talked to my next-door neighbor who had been feeding him in my absence, and she said about four days before, he’d made a break for it and fled the house. I could understand that. Being cooped up in a cement box for three weeks would drive anything stir-crazy. My neighbor assured me she’d seen him and that he would return soon. So, I waited. For two days, I walked around my concession, calling his name into the thick, green African brush behind my house. I stalked around impatiently, jumping to attention each time I heard a pig squeal or a goat yell or baby crying, hoping it was Neebo announcing his victorious return. And for two days … nothing changed. No sighting of Neebo by anyone in the concession. I started to worry a little bit.

Three days after I’d return home, I make my last fruitless call into the thicket behind my house while on an early evening latrine break. I called his name, “Neebo, Neebo …” but it was to no avail. It was then that my neighbor-friend, an eleven year-old girl who runs the small supplies boutique in my concession (you may remember her from a previous blog as Can-Opener Girl) finally let me have it. See looked at me with sad eyes, not wanting to say it as much as I didn’t want to hear it.

- “He’s left.”

- “Yes, Baké, I know he left.”

- “But he is not coming back, Madame.”

- “How do you know this? Is he dead?”

- “Madame, Neebo was just too big and too beautiful. People are hungry. A thief took him, and they ate him. He went into the brush, and he’s not coming back.”

It was then that Baké made the hand motion that strikes a sick, maddening fear into the hearts of all Peace Corps Benin Volunteers. Sullenly, she drew her finger across her neck, in a throat-slicing motion, and repeated one last time, “He’s left.” I asked her if she was certain, and she nodded confidently. I thanked her for her honesty, used the latrine, and make it back into my house just before I broke down into tears. For a few days, I was a mess. I knew going into Beninese pet ownership that this could happen. Heck, I’d heard stories of it happening to other volunteers fairly frequently. But just like any of life’s other “common tragedies,” you don’t really think it can or will happen to you until it does. I was sad and disappointed. But I wasn’t angry at anyone or anything. It’s the culture here. Cats are food, and August is a rough month in Benin. Many people go hungry because the torrential rains wash away crops and destroy fields of vegetables. My hope is that whatever his fate was, Neebo died with purpose, and if that purpose was to become someone else’s dinner, at least a hungry villager ate well that night. To the credit of my neighbors, they were extremely supportive. They knew I was upset about losing my cat, and even though they couldn’t quite understand why, they rallied, bringing me plates of food and stopping by to give their condolences. The entire situation was one of the strangest, heartbreaking yet hear-warming, melodramatic cross-cultural experiences I’ve had during my service.

In ancient Egypt, when a person died, before they were admitted into the Afterlife, they were asked two questions by the gods. The postmortem fate of the dead lay in the answers to those two questions. The questions were: Did you have happiness in your life? Did you bring happiness to the lives of other people? From what I saw, Neebo had a very happy life: napping around the house all day, dueling to-the-death with grasshoppers and mice, greedily gobbling the remains of my macaroni and cheese and chicken salad sandwiches. And, gosh, did he ever make me happy. He was my partner in crime, my best little buddy at post, and my comrade on crusades against the perils of Beninese life. With that, I can only say that the highway to kitty heaven is open for you now, Neebo, and I know you’ve got the EZ Pass. Adieu, cher ami.

Stranger In A Strange Land

I suppose it is all a part of the natural progression of things. But, for all intents and purposes, Kalale is my home now. It’s where I feel most comfortable in this country. It’s where my house is, where all my belongings reside, where my Beninese friends and counterparts live, and where I work. After a year, it is only fitting that I’ve become accustomed to living life here and settling into familiar and happy routines and patterns. I’m independent and on my own out here, but I rarely ever feel lonely. Yet, as the dawning of a full-year at post has come and passed (September 27th , to be exact), I’ve come to an important realization as I throw myself headlong into my second and final year in Benin: no matter what, I am still a foreigner.

The death of Neebo and working stage were hard, in-your-face wake-up calls to me. I’d come to realize that no matter how much local language I’d mastered, how close I’d become with friends and colleagues in village, or how comfortable and attuned I’d become to my surrounding, I was still always going to be a Yovo, just another white girl in Africa – respected, but always different and apart.

Upon reflection of my last year here, I have to say I’ve definitely grown and learned and taken in so much more than I can realistically believe I could ever actually give back. I’ve come to think of the rewards of my service as small victories that benefit me or make me feel accomplished, and whatever progress I make, I am usually the one most pleased by it. I also accept that I’m completely jaded now. The faces of hungry children have stopped driving a stake through my heart. Seeing dead bodies lying on the side of the road doesn’t phase me as it used to. The open-air slaughter of animals is a natural part of eating in this country, and I’ve definitely jumped on the barbeque bandwagon.

I know the Beninese friends I’ve made genuinely like me. But I also realize that if it ever came down to defending me over one of their people, I’m on my own. I know that given the opportunity, any one of my neighbors would probably steal from me, because in their eyes, I have much more than they do simply because I’m American. I know they will lie to my face about anything, if the need arises. So, as begin my second year here, I no longer have to worry about integrating into my village. What I must balance now is acknowledging my own comfort level in this culture with the honest realization that I will never truly be a part of it. I also realize that, at the end of this year, I will have something no one else in my village will probably ever receive – a plane ticket home to America.

Three’s Company, Too!

Now that the incoming volunteers have officially sworn-in as real, live Peace Corps Volunteers, I am happy to report I have three new post mates in the commune of Kalale. Becca, an environmental volunteer who is within a five-minute walk from my house, has proven to be great company. She is extremely motivated, independent, and ready to work. She’s been doing an excellent job of meeting her work colleagues and making new friends. It’s been great fun to show her around the village and fielding the mundane questions that life in a small village inevitably brings to the forefront. In Dunkassa (approximately 30 km away) is another environmental volunteer, Bailey. Originally from Oregon, Bailey is very interested in land cultivation projects in her village. But she does enjoy coming into the commune head (where Becca and I live) to stock up on supplies, use our electricity, and take a shower (her showering area does not have a cement flooring, so she essentially bathes in dirt – G-d bless her!). Last, but hardly least, there is Tom in Bessassi (approximately 10 km away). Although he is close, we’ve had very few “Tom sightings,” in part because he has no cell-phone reception in his village, and also because he wants to throw himself head-first into village integration. I say, good for him! Every once in a while, when someone from Bessassi comes into Kalale, I ask how the white guy is doing. From all accounts, he’s doing great and he’s making all the villagers laugh. I’m sure there will be more on these three as the year goes on.

This week marks two very big milestones in my Peace Corps service. As of July 24th, 2010, I have officially been in Benin for one year. Even writing that sentence takes my breath away. It has been a wild, frustrating, eye-opening, wonderful year, and its anniversary brings a sense of achievement, peace, and excitement that I have never really felt before. Also, on August 1st, the country of Benin celebrated its 50th anniversary of independence from French colonial rule. For fifty years, Benin has been one of the few African country to remain a stable, functioning peaceful democracy - and that is a feat worthy of much celebration of acclaim (and trust me they did! - with parades, parties, and lots and lots of celebratory t-shirts).

In honor of these two events, I’ve decide to make a few Top Ten lists (assembled in no particular degree of superiority or inferiority) showing how I've changed, how I've grown, what I’ve learned, what I’ve accepted, and what I still want to conquer. And the lists go on…

Ten Things I Love About Africa

1. Tissu: Tissu is the French word for fabric, and no place does amazing fabric like Benin. They sell tissu everywhere - no matter how small the village, and everyone wears it all the time. You can wear it to be formal (in dresses and suits) or you can wear to be casual (in robes and sarongs you wear around the house or in your concession). It can multi-task as a towel, a shawl, a blanket, a sponge, as curtains and furniture upholstery …it’s very versatile. And the colors and prints - gold, deep purple, fiery orange, sunset pink, sky blue, crimson, and floral green with everything from animals to airplanes incorporated in the design. It’s a wonderful way to express your fashion sense, and it magically keeps you warm in the early morning breeze and cool during balmy afternoons. I love tissu, and I will be bringing lots of it back to America with me.

2. Igname Pilé: I never thought the day would come, but there is actually a bit of African cuisine I very much enjoy. In French, it’s called igname pilé (pounded yams for the non-francophones). Basically, it consists of mashed up African yams (similar in taste and texture to potatoes), salt, and water and has a gluey, firm consistency. But the thing that makes igname pilé great is the sauce. You can have it with tomato meat sauce, okra sauce (a.k.a. snot sauce because the resemblance is uncanny), or even peanut sauce (which is marvelous when done right). You eat it with your hands, taking off chunks from a plate sized portion of the yams and dunking it in a side dish of sauce. Rainy season means yams are out-of-season, so it’s a hard dish to find right now, and to my shock and bewilderment…I have actually found myself craving it. Hats off to all the African women who wake up at the crack of dawn to pound those yams in their large, carved wood basins - it is so good!

3. Harmattan: Harmattan is the perfect season. Imagine a time and place where for five months straight you can wake up knowing that the weather will be perfect - seventy degrees, sunny with a cooling breeze in the morning and at night, and zero chance of rain, EVER. It’s glorious, it’s fun, it’s refreshing - it’s the good life.

4. Salutations: It’s a crucial part of African culture to greet every person you meet during your day with a series of questions to get caught up on their daily life. The questions are the same everywhere (and granted, sometimes it gets to be too much when I'm not feeling all that friendly), but it is custom to ask: How is your day? Your work? Your health? Your family? Your children? You currently energy level? The thing that blows me away is that none of it is superficial. People are actually genuinely interested in the answers to these questions everyday and are offended if you do not take the time to ask them in response. West Africa is an open and friendly place, and it is quite nice coming from the Middle Atlantic region of the U.S.A. where you barely make eye contact with people walking down the street - let alone actually going out of your way to smile or say a simple, “Hello.”

5. Gri gri: Gri gri is a voodoo term for the evil spirits that curse you or generally just cause problems in your life. A child dies? It was the gri gri. Your plants never blossomed? You got gri gri-ed. You caught a nasty case malaria? You dissed the gods, and now the gri gri is after you. But it’s also an excellent scapegoat if you are so in need. Students forgot their homework? Forget that lame old “my dog ate it” excuse - it was the gri gri! It’s also a wonderful way to get people or children from touching things that are important to you (examples: computer, iPod, hand sanitizer). Ah! All those items have been mysteriously cursed by gri gri. People avoid touching it like a hot pot.

6. Naps: In this culture, it is not only accepted, but expected!, that you should take at least a three hour nap during the day at some point. The generally accepted period of time is between noon and 3 p.m. everyday, but you can easily find people lying sprawled out on a mat in the shade or in the branches of a tree at any time of day, snoozing away in a La La Land far, far away. If it’s a shopkeeper that’s asleep on the job, it is acceptable to wake them up to ask a question or make a purchase, but by and large, I just leave them conked out and move on to the next boutique. Everyone sells the same stuff at the same price anyway.

7. The 20-Hour Work Week: In Beninese culture, if you put in a twenty-hour week at work, you are overexerting yourself. In parts due to the fact that people are malnourished (and therefore lack energy reserves), the weather affects what you can do (if it too hot, working is difficult and no one goes anywhere if it rains), and most people are not consistently employed (crop-gatherers, tree-cutters, carpenters, or health care works are all seasonal jobs or work on a case-by-case basis). As a teacher, I have one of the most consistent, time-controlled jobs in this country, and it commands a decent amount of respect. To earn that respect, I all have to put in is a measly 20-hours per week.

8. Petit Culture: The social and work system here is sustained off of seniority and age-related hierarchy. Thus, if you are a child - be you boy or girl (a.k.a “petits“- the French word for “small“)- you are constantly in a state of doing obligated chores or favors to the older people around you. Therefore, I can essentially sit in my house like Jabba the Hutt and have small children come by my house to get anything or do anything I need - my laundry, sweeping my house, buying milk powder, toilet paper, phone credit. Picture this: You’re cooking and realize you’ve run out of salt - no problem: you’ve got a petit for that. You’ve just taken a shower and realize you have no phone credit to call your best Peace Corps friend - fuggedaboutit!: you’ve got a petit for that. Generally, I tend to overpay my petits, because they do better work and then there is always a healthy competition to see who I will hire to do my housework. But, often times, the smaller kids don’t want money - they want in on my awesome stash of American candy (Jolly Ranchers and Werther’s Originals are a huge hit over here). At least they have their priorities straight.

9. The Exchange Rate: I have some understanding that impending global contagion is a worldwide fear right now, but having American dollar bills in West Africa right now is better than gold. The exchange rate is awesome, and the amount of stuff you can buy for pennies on the U.S. dollar is almost absurd. Here’s what you can get in Benin for one American dollar: 60cL of beer, 40 cL of sangria, a five minute phone call to America, a Coke and a packet of cookies, a 20-pack of the most expensive cigarettes on the market, two rolls of toilet paper, a watch, a pair of sunglasses, a round-trip motorcycle taxi fare across Parakou, five pineapples or ten mangoes (in-season), and my personal favorite: a chocolate ice cream cone with sprinkles from Sun Foods.

10: The Fashion/Color Free-For-All: There is no gender/color bias in Benin. So, for ten year-old Beninese boy, it is completely acceptable for his favorite color to be pink and NO ONE in the school yard is going to beat him up after class for having that predilection. The colors men and women wear are astounding! No one bats an eye or questions the sexual orientation of a grown man walking down the street in a tight, hot pink, mesh t-shirt and skin-hugging, bell-bottom jeans bedazzled in rhinestones in the shape of butterflies: he is just expressing himself and looking very good doing it. Plastic flip flops and a suit is a completely acceptable, put-together outfit for a government official to wear to work. It has really made me rethink what is fashionable self-expression and let go of my own color biases. Yes, my dear little student Mohammed, your plastic purple sandals look very fetching today.

Ten Things I Hate About Africa

1. Gastro-intestinal Distress: There is no two ways around it; you live here long enough, you drink here long enough, you eat here long enough, and your internal plumbing will start to revolt against you. Every time I put something into my mouth here, I am taking a huge gamble, and I have lost on many, many occasions. Most Volunteers - grown men and women - have pooped their pants at least once in their service due to parasite habitation inside their innards (luckily, to date, this tragedy has yet to befall me). Chronic diarrhea, flagellation, and cramping is a way of life for all of us here, and it is miserable. There is no amount of Imodium to cure what I’ve got.

2. Transport: This is a mathematical truth: In hours, it takes LESS time to go from Philadelphia to Paris to Cotonou than it takes to get from Kalale to Cotonou. Getting anyway in this country is an expedition of Odysseus proportions. I am four hours from the only paved “superhighway” that goes through Benin, thus most of my travel is on beat-up, pot-hole ridden dirt paths that are impassable in the rain. A week straight of rain means I am literally trapped in my village until the sun comes out again. My main mode of transport is by bush taxi, which is essentially a beat-up sedan filled with no fewer than nine people at a time (the Beninese would think clown cars have tons of elbow room by comparison). The taxi station is a mess of drivers trying to grabbing you and your baggage in a desperate attempt to fill their cars. In cities, I get around by using motorcycle taxis which are often operated by drunk drivers or drivers with vision impairments (the practice of optometry has yet to hit Benin). The “safest” mode of transport, which I use the least frequently because they do not run a route to my village, is by public busses (giant, tin Chinese Greyhounds). However, during my service I had seen two horrific busses accidents that have left over thirty people dead and actually passed one as it burned to molten melt on the side of the road. Travel is scary, ridiculous, but absolutely necessary. All that is standing between me and a fatal crash is some luck and a Peace Corps-issued plastic helmet (which I wear ALWAYS).

3. Making Purchases: The main way of buying things for life and survival in Benin is by shanty stands or small boutiques. However, there are never any prices on anything. You must haggle for EVERYTHING. Often times, even the purchase of toilet paper or a bar of soap comes down to a name-calling, screaming match between me and the vender. Once we finally agree to a price, which can take minutes to do, another drama unfolds. No one in this country ever has change for anything, and if they do, they are hiding it from you. It doesn’t matter which size bill or coin denomination you hand the said vender; it is always followed by a sullen look of disappointment and the inevitable response of, “I cannot break this.” Well, of course you can! It’s five o’clock in the evening, your store has been busy all day, and we both know you have the change. Yet, always, it is a fight that ends in “petit” going to search for the change to break my money. We Volunteers hoard small money like it is going to run out, and it upsets us all to have to part with any of it (especially those of us who live in small villages where the problem is infinitely worse). It’s obnoxious and constant, and one of the most annoying aspects of my everyday routine.

4. Lack of Anonymity: I am a white, American woman with flowing, long auburn hair, and therefore, I am a celebrity. It doesn’t matter where I go or who I am with, I am constantly touched, stared at, and asked for my hand in marriage. I can make babies scream in terror or young boys giggle in hormonally-induced delight by just walking through my village on my way to school. Nothing I do is under the radar of the people around me. If I buy a tin of sardines for my cat, the villagers find out and gossip about how much money that silly American spends to fed her cat. If I leave the village for a weekend, everyone knows that I left, where I went, and when I’ve arrived back. I love my alone-time and my privacy, and I find this phenomenon to be quite an invasion, but I suppose it is better than being tortured or tormented for being different. So, I will take it for another year, but with poor grace.

5. “Cadeau” Culture: The French word for “gift” is “cadeau,” and because I am a white American, I am stereotyped as having tons of money. Yet, in so many ways, it’s hardly a stereotype. Although I live on a decent salary by Beninese standards (a little less than $200 dollars per month), I am far, far from the wealthiest person in my village. However, for generations now, it is well known that American, European, and Asian nations give large sums of money to African countries, because they are poor. That trickle down mentality is ingrained into them. Nongovernmental organizations headed by people of mostly white ethnicity come into Benin and just start throwing out money and supplies, and it has completely corrupted the Beninese mentality of work ethic. They honestly believe because I am white, I am rich, and therefore I MUST give them things, because they are African and poor. I am constantly begged for money for food, clothing, rent payments, car payments, and alcohol. The main problem I have is not a lack of generosity or compassion, but that by helping one person in need, I am EXPECTED to help everyone, even those who in relation, are not in need. Every gift is an expectation. Every return from a trip should be rewarded with some token of my travel. It’s disgusting, it’s selfish, it’s impolite, and it only fosters a mentality of Africans accepting hand-outs instead of working to make progress and money.

6. Food: As I have said time and time again, so I will repeat again: the food here sucks. What food there is, there is little of, and absolutely no variety. Food staples are macaroni, rice, tomatoes, onion, corn, and okra, and all fluctuate unexpectedly in-and-out of season and supply. There are also so many things that are just revolting to even think about ingesting: akassa (fermented corn meal dried in the sun for days), pate noir (black, fungus-looking yam mush made black by adding in charred yam skins), and every single part of a cow, sheep, bush rat, chicken, guinea fowl, goat, or pig you can imagine (feet, beaks, heads, tongues, hearts, brains, eyes, ears, intestines, skin, bone marrow). There are blood sauces and snot sauces. There are spices so hot and citrons so sour, you can burn your tongue for days on end. The appearances of real coffee, milk, juices, and fruits and vegetables are so few and far between. And oh, heaven help those Volunteers that discovered latten food allergies here.

7. Chauleur: I spent the majority of my last blog post whining about this particular Beninese season, and I really feel no reason to beat a dead horse, but honestly - it’s not the Sahara; it’s the Sa-HELL. For three months, the sun beats down Benin with a fury so ravenous you would assume it was out for total obliteration of all life on that earth. It’s survivable - I am a living testament to that - but the conditions you are subjected to almost want to make you beg for a swift and easy death. Can’t wait for next year (written with a morose, sarcastic expression).

8. Mosquitoes: Save for a few extremely weird and nerdy entomologists, who really likes mosquitoes? I loathe their very existence. The mosquitoes in Benin are everywhere, during all times of the year, but they seem to thrive in the South where it is humid, in places near water (rivers, lakes, streams, the ocean), and during the rainy seasons. Right now, it’s the rainy season in northern Benin, and there is not enough bug spray or mosquito netting in the world to save my sorry skin from being bitten to smithereens by those malaria-spreading little buggers. Malaria is an easily curable illness, and all Volunteers are on medication to prevent them from actually contracting the illness, but I have seen many of my friends fall victim to the “palu,” as it is called here. Essentially, you get an incredibly high fever, followed by a body-jarring attack of the chills and cold-sweats for about a week. You know you are getting better when you START to lose liver function. Mosquitoes and malaria: the “cadeau” that keeps on giving.

9. Latrines: I’ve officially been defecating into my tiny cement and tin, hole-in-the-floor, lean-to for a year now, and going in there and taking care of business is still the absolute worst part of my days. The latrines smell awful, I’ve had to master my aiming abilities or else I have a shit-load (pun intended) of work to clean up, and the only thing I have found to suppress the never-ending parade of cockroaches that infest my latrine is a small bottle of a white, powdery substance that I was pretty sure was poisoning me. It’s sad but true; one of my favorite sounds in the whole wide world right now is the sputtering whirlpool of a flushing toilet. I guess I have to look on the bright side; at least we have toilet paper in Benin, which is more than I can say for the Volunteers in neighboring Niger (don’t shake hands with those folks - just smile and nod).

10. Harassment: Even though for the most part, white foreigners are considered to be “good” by the Beninese people, it hardly stops them from consistently attacking me for and about everything. I am bombarded with people begging me to give them money, clothing, and food. The marriage proposals and cat-calls are never silenced. Mothers rush up to me with their screaming, terrified babies in hand, imploring me to touch their babies to give them good luck (some Beninese believe that Caucasian and Asian people are lucky) or to cure an illness. Grown men (even colleagues of mine at my school and husbands of friends of mine) touch me constantly, always pushing the boundaries to see what they can get away with. Women pull at my hair all the time, trying to get out strands or convince me to cut it all off and give it to them so they can weave it into their own heads. Once, while in a very large open market in Porto-Novo, I was actually chased by a woman wielding a dull knife trying to lop off all my wavy, auburn, thick, Beyoncé-esque hair. It’s crazy, but c’est la vie.

Ten Things That Africa Has Changed About Me

1. Je parle franÇais: Now, I would hardly go as far as to call myself a “fluent” speaker of the French language, but I can most certainly get around quite easily and efficiently living in a francophone country. I understand most all conversations that go on, and I am getting to a level where I can discuss topics such as politics, social behaviors, societal problems, and formulate arguments while sounding decently articulate in French. The only kicker here is for the first time in my life, I know exactly how it feels to be illiterate. Because I learned the language primarily through speaking it to other people, I cannot really read or write the language well. In fact, I recently founded a copy of the French children’s literature classic Le Petit Prince, and I had no idea what was going on or what the words are. French is very difficult to write, because it is in now way phonetic and many of the same letter combination create similar sounds (as it is in English), so reading and writing French is a loser’s game for me. It’s something to work on; a second-language acquisition hobby I can spend the rest of my life getting better at. For now, I am just working on building a solid foundation, and enjoying calling myself bilingual.

2. I Am One With Nature: Because I have electricity for such a limited period of time each day, my days are literally a race against the sun to get most of the basics accomplished. In order to wash my dishes, get my laundry dried, and take a shower, I have to make sure everything isset-up and done before the dusk begins to fall. My internal clock is now set to wake me up before the sun rises, before the roosters start crowing and the mosques start chanting. I find a ninety degree day to be comfortable and refreshing and a put a blanket over me and a sweater on when then temperature falls below seventy degrees or I’m in air conditioning for too long. I am constantly captivated by the natural beauty of the sunsets and starlit night skies that I have more than once been brought to tears or jumped up and down out of joy. I love the feel of the rain and the wind as it blows through the screen door during a storm, and the sound it makes as it pounds against my tin roof. I walk amongst free-roaming chickens, pigs, cows, goats, and horses with the same frequency and ignorance as I walk amongst people. It’s a beautiful world out there beyond my front door, and I am so glad I’ve been given the opportunity to open my eyes, take it in, and watch the effortless ease with which it unfolds around me.

3. I’ve Accepted The Things I Can’t Change: After living in Benin for a year and immersing myself in the culture, I’ve learned that there are certain things that I just can not and will not change. Professors will continue to bribe their female students with sex for better grades. Food venders will continue to pass out food, wipe their butts, shake hands, and change money with the same hand. I will be harassed and judged and asked for money everywhere I go because I am a American. I will constantly be told that I am fat (it’s a compliment here, but it’s still so very annoying) and that I should get married and have a baby because, at 23, I am very, very old. I have to accept that the majority of students at my school will never get past the seventh grade and will become embittered, whining Africans looking for hand-outs from anyone that will give it to them. I have accepted that the value on human life here is so much less important and that the death of children and adults to what would be easily curable diseases in the Developed World is normal. I can’t change these things. All I can do is educate the people I can, show compassion, live my life here as best as I can, and hope for a better future.

4. I Am a Teacher: With a few school year behind me, I realize that I am now a fully competent teacher. I am good at my job, and what’s more, I love doing it. I have no fear or anxiety getting up in front of a group of people - small or large - and waxing philosophic in two languages. I’ve adopted a slow, annunciated, strong teacher’s voice. I command a presence and can instruction non-verbally using body language, gestures, and tone. Teaching is a well-respected job here, and I love that I feel like I am actually contributing to bettering the lives of my students. It’s fun to watch my students grow and learn and have fun getting an education. I want them all to succeed; I want them all to flourish. It’s a great life skill, and I’m proud to have acquired it here.

5. I Look Different: It’s true. If you saw me now, you’d recognize me, but I would look a lot different. I’ve lost some weight from not really eating healthy for a year, and my recent yoga stint has help bring back some muscle tone and definition. My Italian and Puerto Rican sides have come out in full bloom, and my skin has a nice creamed-coffee perma-tan look now. My hair is crazy-colored. The bleach I put in my bathing water has bleached it so many colors that it looks like a sunset of browns, oranges, reds, and yellows, and it flows waving from the roots in a thick bundle. I look like I’ve been stranded on an island for a while, ship-wrecked and loving it. I’m usually chipper with a big smile on my face. I’m loving my lifestyle and it exudes out of me like rays of bright light. I’ve changed, but it’s all for the better.

6. I’ve Developed Patience: Before I left for Africa, I was as tightly wound and uptight as any other East Coast, Tri-City suburbanite. My patience had a half-life of the amount of time it takes to change the channel on the TV with a remote. But Africa has gotten under my skin. Of course, this change did not happen quickly or fluidly. I spent my first few months here completely frustrated by tardiness, plans that fell through at the last minute, waiting hours in a taxi station for the car to fill with passengers. But at some point, I just let it all go. I can’t tell you where or when it happened, but now it just does. I can entertain myself for hours playing games on my phone. I always keep a book on me for spur-of-the-moment reading-while-waiting material. I can teach the same lessons three days in a row until my students understand without being frustrated at all. This too is another life skill I am so glad I’ve acquired. Just relax. Just let go. Enjoy the ride and watch the scenery fly by you.

7. I Poop Talk: Nothing in America grossed me out more than people talking publicly about their bowel movements. I was always horrified and disgusted when people mentioned the frustration or enjoyment they received from their last trip to the John. But all that’s gone down the Crapper now. Amongst Volunteers and Beninese alike, talking poop is a very important and lively topic of conversation. I can talk poop all day - be it thick or thin, runny or chunky, blood-filled or bile-ridden, whether it’s happening too much or not enough. Poop. Poop. Poop. Everyone poops. I finally just found my own voice on the topic. So, by the way, how is your plumbing today?

8. Blame It On the Alcohol: I have a much, much higher alcohol tolerance now. In Benin, alcohol consumption is rampid, and I have absolutely adapted to that part of the culture. There is always a bar or a boutique selling alcohol, no matter how Muslim or small your village is. The local alcohol, “chuke,” (a fermented millet beverage) is so cheap, and after about two small bowls full, you are a very happy and functional tipsy. I still rarely drink in village, and most of my drinking occurs in big cities when I am with other Americans and Volunteers, but I can pound three 60cL bottles of beer and walk straight. Definitely couldn’t do that in America. I’m not sure it’s something to be so proud of, but it is a notable change nonetheless.

9. International Street Smarts: Growing up in a small, old dairy farm community in the hills of the Pocono Mountains, I never really needed street smarts. We kept our doors unlocked during the day, my sister used to keep her car keys in the ignition of her car, and I rarely looked before leaping across the View to my neighbor’s house. But here, I know I am a target. I watch what I say, not only because I am a single woman living alone, but I’m also a foreigner. I have lots of nice things in my house that my neighbors don’t (a laptop, a camera, porcelain dishware, a mobile phone, a very fat and edible cat). I never go out after the sun goes down by myself. I do consider myself and open and welcoming person, but I am constantly on my guard with male social visits after dark, most often preferring to go outside and join them inside of inviting them in. Again, this is a great life lessons. Sometimes, when you become comfortable in a foreign place, essentially when it becomes your home, it’s easy to forget the very real risks and dangers that are out there. Muggings, robberies, and assaults can happen anywhere in the world; you just have to keep your eyes open and your head in the game to stay safe.

10. I Am Living My Dream: Since my senior year in college, when I applied for the Peace Corps, it was my sole goal to have this experience - to travel, learn, and broaden my horizons. I have had the unique opportunity to see that dream realized. Every single day, I wake up and think to myself, “Holy cow, I live in Africa. This is insane!” And it truly is. Living here is ridiculous, absurd, nutty, and selfish. It’s something I am doing for me, because I think I will be a better person for it in the end, and along the way I may be able to change the lives of the people living life with me. This is probably the greatest change that has overcome me in the last year. If you believe in something long enough, if you pursue it with enough heart and integrity, you really can make your dreams come true. I am living proof of that, and I honestly can’t wait to continue changing, loving, and hating life here in Benin.

First and foremost, I’d like to begin by apologizing for not writing in such a long time. I know that I promised to keep writing as long as you keep reading, so it’s important I keep up my end of the deal. However, my goal in writing this blog was to maintain integrity and honesty within it. I was having a hard time writing, because I could not truly see many of the situations that have ensued over the last three months objectively : I was too deep inside the maelstrom to get any sense of clarity. After several months of drafting, I believe this blog update to be the clearest and more sincere representation of how my service has been over the past three months.

Also, I’d like to dedicate this blog to my Dad. Through his own rough and ragged road on the way to recovery he has shown me - even though we are thousands of miles apart - that dedication, perseverance, strong family ties, and a little faith can get you through the challenges of life you don’t see coming.

Thanks again to all of you who have let me whine, complain and offered advice and condolences on the phone or through emails over the past few months. I know I can be a lot to handle - even from thousands of miles away. Thank you again, from the very bottom of my heart.

Bienvenue au France

I think it was the bread that did me in. In the beginning of April, my Peace Corps confidant, Tracie and I broke out of Africa and into the First World - France! Out of happenstance and circumstance, we also were joined on our tour de force by our friends Jamee and Ben, Oh la la, c'est une belle vie! We started our sojourn in the outskirts of Brittany, in a little town of Falleron. Tracie, Ben, and I had the fortuitous opportunity to stay with an old friend of Ben's (a former missionary priest in Benin named Vincent) in the village of Falleron for a couple of days. We frolicked around the countryside, checked out all the beaches and historical sites - the oyster bays, the marina, old castles and churches, relics of World World II. Conveniently, Vincent's parents live next door, so for lunch and dinner, I had opportunity to take in some authentic French cuisine (and practice my newly acquired French language skills with real French people who spoke no English), and it was spellbinding. The meals went on for hours and the conversations rolled fluidly and effortlessly around the table. Every night felt like Thanksgiving dinner - smoked, salted ham, butter fresh from the family farm, pâte, foie gras, camembert, string beans in butter cream sauce - and oh, heavens, THE BREAD. If the French contributed nothing to the world other than their amazing ability to bake off loaf after loaf of crispy baguettes jewels, I'd still consider them to be one of the greatest civilizations in the world.

After three days in the French countryside, we went off to Paris - the City of Lights, the City of Love. After a brief stint at the nearest Western Union (I was promptly robbed of my wallet upon my arrival at Charles de Galle airport, so my parents had to wire me money *thanks again for that*), we check into our lovely little hotel. The location could not have been more perfect for two food-deprived Peace Corps volunteers: a 24-hour bakery across the street, a McDonald's on the corner, and several Asian eateries within walking distance of our nearest Metro stop. Together, the four of us conquered the city - romantic pictures by the Eiffel Tower, a morning walk up the endless stairs to La Scare Coeur, Les Champs d'Ellyses, authentic French onion soup and red wine at local cafes, and a eerie yet incredibly interesting subterranean tour of the Catacombs. We spent our nights eating sushi, pizza, fresh salads and soups, and of course ( I am but my mother's daughter) indulging in a plethora of regional wines. But really, again, I must go back to this - France to me, was all about the bread. Bread stuffed with cheese and meat. Baguettes smothered in brie for breakfast in the morning, and the smooth, subtly crispy oral extravaganza that was a bona fide croissant. After four days in one of the most beautiful, historical, magical cities on Earth, my stomach was stuffed to the brim, my heart was aflutter with romance, and even the rain and the cold was a refreshing reprieve from the hot, dry, desert of Kalale in April.

One week after our first foray back into "civilization," Tracie and I came back to Benin.

Returning back to Benin from France has been the hardest part of my Peace Corps experience thus far. It boggled my mind, after seeing tours of grand castles and churches built in the fourteenth and fifteenth century without the aid of modern technology: Why is Benin not capable of this? What did France have then that Africa lacks now? Of course, there are a whole host of answers to those questions (money, infrastructure, ingenuity), and all of them frustrated me. How could a country like Benin (poverty-stricken, under-educated, lacking in public transport, sanitation, and infrastructure), even exist on the same planet as France, as America? Dwelling on questions like these only leads to narrow, self-scrutinizing questions: What am I really doing here in Benin? Is anything that I'm doing, that I have done, actually making any difference? How am I ever going to muster eating baguette bread in Africa again???

La Chauleur

It was with those questions in mind, I returned back to teaching English in Sub-Saharan Africa. Let's go over a bit of geography first: Sub-Saharan Africa. Little Benin is located quite miraculously just below the drift of the Sahara Desert - the LARGEST, driest, and arguably the most godforsaken plot of space on the entire planet - and just a teensy bit above the Equator. When I arrived back from cold, rain-drenched Paris, I came into the midst of La Chauleur (the hot season). La Chauleur literally translates to “the hotness.” So, in effect, I went in warned.

Just how hot it would get, however, is still almost unimaginable to me. Temperatures reached well into the 110 degrees Fahrenheit range, but those are just numbers on a scale. What it felt like - that is another story in itself. Typically, in Kalale, it only rains during the rainy season. So, since I arrived in Kalale last October, it had not rained at all. Not even one little drop. During the windy season, as the harmattan zephyrs threw dust all around, I barely noticed the lack of rain. Everyday welcomed me with a blue cloudless sky, a steady, calm wind, and gorgeous sunsets spreading streaks of pink, red, violet, and amber across the twilight sky. But not during Chauleur. Chauleur was mean and heartless. The sun, so bright and forceful, created a heat wave so intense it felt like a smog cloud of fire. The intense heat turned the dirt roads into crags and craters, eroding away at any parts that contained the least bit of moisture. Each winding road in the village reminded me of a scab, raw and red, turning a ugly brown, unable to heal itself. Wells ran dry. All vegetation was suppressed underground to seek shelter from the violent solar rays (which meant no more onions, ochre, or tomatoes…the vegetable staples of my diet). There was no respite from this heat. Even at night, the arid climate remained steady in its course to bake me alive. My house is made of cement and capped off with a tin roof. Every single day and night, I was drenched in my own sweat. All over my body, especially in very inconvenient parts like the backs of my knees, the small of my back, and the crevices in my elbows, I developed heat rash. It is a plague of Biblical proportions. Tiny little bumps that resembled cystic acne protruded from my pores - red, glaring, and angry. The only thing that even mildly helped to numb the constant pain was dowsing myself in Gold Bond. In so doing, I began walking around town looking like an awkwardly sunburned ghost, and which made for good prodding and fodder for my Beninese neighbors. There is no electricity during the day, therefore, the was no fan or air conditioning unit to save me from my sweat-soaked stupor. Even the fan I had for the five hours of electricity I have during the evening acted more like a blow dryer than an acclimatizer; it just pushed hot air around the room in oscillating circles.

But my body was not the only thing affected by La Chauleur. Teaching English became a battle in and of itself. Not only was the heat conspiring against me, but so was another worthy adversary: a two month strike during February and March that tacked on seven additional weeks of school to the final semester. Now, instead of finishing school in early May, all the teachers would be teaching through the eye of the Chauleur storm. Days dragged on, my exercises were constantly interrupted by students begging to get a drink of water to cool themselves down (and how could I deny them, in the extreme heat, while I continuously took long pulls from my own Nalgene bottle?) and the irratation of having to focus, sit still, and endure in the excruciating environment.

A horrible thing happened one afternoon. I was passing out the grades to a quiz to a class of younger students, and they became supremely rowdy. They were hitting each other, storming my desk, arguing points of the quiz when I repeatedly reminded them I would review the quiz after all the grades were handed back. But the blame was on me. That afternoon, I lost control of my class. In my exhaustion and dehydration I stopped being an authority figure and started to just lie myself down like a mat to walk all over. As fate would have it, the Surveillant of the school came into my class, filled with rage, demanding from class to know why they were so disruptive. I kept quiet as he reamed the entire class out over their unruly behavior. It was the first time I had ever seen the Surveillant, the school's disciplinarian, but also my good friend in village and colleague at school, become so infuriated. That's when I noticed the thick, long, dark brown strip of leather he had in his hand - a cattle whip. I'd know since I started training to be a teacher in Benin that corporal punishment was protocol in schools, but never before had I seen it with my own eyes. One by one, he pointed at students, had them kneel before him with their palms facing outward, towards him; sternly, and with an expression as cold as ice, he beat one student after the other with the whip. Tears welled in their eyes. These students - my students- who I had grown to care for, known by name, developed a pleasant rapport with, were being beaten, because I lacked the wherewithal to discipline them. Racked with guilt, I could only watch about four of them being hit before I gathered my things and attempted to leave the room. But the Surveillant stopped me at the doorway. He looked at me politely but insistently and said, "Madame, I think you should stay and watch this. This is how Kalale reforms students who disrespect their teacher." I stood frozen for a moment - filled with guilt, anguish, heartbreak. But he was my superior and a man, and I knew enough about Beninese culture to note that although his tone was asking me to stay with polite regard, the subtext read quite clearly: I want you to see what happens to students here who misbehave. Stoically, I walked back to my desk at the front of my class and watched in shock and horror as all sixty of my students were lashed. In my heart, I knew I had failed them. I learned a very quick, very hard lesson that morning. It was no long "good enough" to just sit up and stand in front of the class and preach the grammar and phonetics of the English language. I had to teach them respect, I had to lead by example, no matter what conditions I was under - because I was a teacher, their teacher. I also realized the consequences of me not following through with my actions by the marks left across my students' hands and behinds.

I left class that day, head in hands, eyes filled with salty, burning tears and wallowed in self pity. When I finally cleared the wetness from my eyes and took in a deep breath, I saw that even despite the heat, the famine, the tedious work of living life in an African village, people all around me were surviving, even thriving.

I Will Survive

When the going gets tough, the tough get going. When you’ve got nothing, you’ve got nothing to lose. These were hard times for me. Major adjustments in my life, testing my physical and mental ability to keep up with the oath I’d taken in September - to commit myself to Peace Corps service for two years. Yet, all around me were just ordinary people. Ordinary, everyday, average African people getting along just fine. The students whined, yes, but they still showed up to classes in large, steady numbers. The Mamans who served breakfast, lunch, and dinner in the village market still came to work everyday, food prepared and ready to eat. Granted, they were accustomed to La Chauleur, and I’m sure have adapted to the climate over generations in a way that my body never will over two years, but they were plugging along. So why couldn’t I? I remembered what I was here to do: to give students a skill that could help them improve their quality of life.

No one ever said that this was going to be easy. People actually told me I was a brave person to come to Africa and do what I was doing. I didn’t really understand what they saw or, even in their naivety, what they really meant. What I was doing was not a test of how good a teacher I was, how well I could endure in an environment under extreme conditions, or how good my French was. It was about making a promise to serve a community and sticking it out until the end. It was about the oath I made to the Peace Corps and my fellow volunteers - not to win every battle, not to be the best English teacher in Benin, but to continue to do my best work as best as I could and see it through until it was finished.

As it goes in life, even on the darkest nights, a few stars manage to peek through the clouds and twinkle in the night sky. That twinkle in during Chauleur was mango season. Oddly enough, the wonderfully delicious fruit thrives in hot, arid environments making Chauleur the ideal time to harvest mangoes. Just as luck would have it, the only shade blocking my house from the sun happens to be a four meter tall mango tree. All I had to do was step outside and puck a nice, round firm mango from the branch, pierce it with a knife, and dig right it, I suppose it was a fair trade - tomatoes and onions for mangoes. Mangoes are sweet, juicy, and filled with vitamins and nutrients. But mangoes are funny fruits. The outer rind of a mango is actually akin to poison ivy; it can make you extremely itchy, puffy and uncomfortable if you handle it too long. But just underneath all that tough rind is the most sweet, delicious, refreshing taste you can imagine on a parched, dry Chauleur day. In some ways, I felt like I was a mango. Chauleur had given me a tough, hard, even bitter exterior, but just below the surface lie the fruits of my patience.

The only thing that endured with more surefire gusto than the mangoes was our Girls Club. The girls had hit a great stride - all were attending practices and meetings on time. There was very little attitude from some of our more sassy girls. They were selling popcorn at World Cup screenings and school soccer matches faster than we could import the kernels from Parakou. They performed their routines and sketches for local events, did a community clean-up around the Health Center, and made quite a bit of money in the process (even enough to by themselves their very own drum to use for their performances). My little mangoes were growing, sprouting, and truly becoming the sweet little girls I always knew were hidden just beneath the surface.

Finally, on Friday, June 4, 2010 around 21:00 hours, the rain began to fall. It didn’t stop until early the next morning.

Down Came The Rain

Once it started raining like this, it didn’t stop. I woke up in the morning to warm sunshine, but the ground was still damp with the rain that had fallen the night before. It was almost magical. I got to keep my perfect, blue sky days without the heat, which was quelled by the soft, consistent, pitter-pattering rainfall against my tin roof at nighttime. Almost overnight it seemed, everything came into full bloom again. The beautiful red and purple blossoms flowered on the hibiscus trees. The dirt roads swelled with green flora. The rough crags and delves in the earth now held new green life. I woke up in the morning, in my own bed for the first time in two months, and searched for a spare blanket to cover myself from the slight chill left behind by the rain. I found the baguette bread in Parakou to be not only palatable again, but downright enjoyable! It was a thing of beauty, the stuff of myth and legends, and I think I could only believe it because it was happening right before my eyes.

The rest of the school year flew by in a flurry of final exams, grading papers, filling out report cards, and cataloguing who passed and failed. Out of all my classes - over 200 students in all - only eleven did not pass English for the year. I was extremely proud, of both them and me, because we’d made it through the first year of teaching English, and it was a success.

Just as the old child’s song goes, down comes the rain, and washes the spiders out. All the little spiders in my life - the heat rash, the lack of food, the intense heat, the never-ending school year - all were washed away nearly overnight with coming of the rainy season. I still have some actual spiders clinging to corners of my house, but if that is all I have to deal with for now, I say let them stay. It’s much nicer inside my house anyway.

The only fire the rain could not put out was the one raging all around the continent of Africa: a tremendous, howling, unabashed fever of supporters for the 2010 World Cup Games in South Africa. African identity amongst the countries of the continent is very important. The large victory for South Africa as host of the World Cup games was a small victory for all the countries of Africa. They even increased my electricity in Kalale to twenty-four hours per day, so that all the villagers could watch every game tha was televised. (I haven’t quite caught the football fever, so I used a lot of that extra energy to type out emails and watch movies, so it’s a win-win situation for me). The first game I watched was the United States versus England at a Peace Corps favorite bar/cafeteria in Parakou. They projected the match on a large screen, and about sixteen of us gathered around in our red, white, and blue to cheer on our home team. At the start of the match, they played the “Star Spangled Banner,” which inspired all of us to stand up and yell it at the top our lungs. Being in the Peace Corps has made me extremely patriotic. America may not be perfect; in fact, right now it’s overflowing with flaws and injustices. But take it from me, it’s a great place to be from.

During the last week of June, my post mate Jocylin and I packed up five of our top girls from Girls Club (the judging was based on grades, club meeting attendance, and overall behavior and rapport), and went to Parakou to participate in a week of Camp GLOW (Girls Leading Our World). The camp was funded in part by donations from local community groups and municipal offices and also by the generous donations of Peace Corps friends and family members (thank you to all who donated!). For one week, the girls participated in a myriad of activities from games, sports (I taught yoga), arts, crafts, journaling to taking in and discussing lectures and sessions on sexual health, financial planning, and how to contribute back to their communities. They ate three complete, healthy, nutritious meals a day and even had two snacks in between (I swear to this - one girl nearly cried out of joy when we handed her an apple. It was the first time she’d ever had one in her life). They attended field trips to the African Historic Museum and the Parakou University radio station. Because all of our Kalale girls had lots of experience performing in front of audiences, they excelled at talking about their Camp GLOW experience in a radio interview that was later aired throughout the Borgou region. But I had to admit, being a camp counselor was hard. The days were long (7:00 am - 10:00 pm, seven days straight), and watching over a massive group of preteens was exhausting. But it was all worth it to see the girls learning new things, making new friends from other villages, and having fun and enjoying being little girls. Save few a minor plights of malaria amongst the fifty girls, everything went off without a hitch. The most rewarding moment of camp however, came on the last day. We taught the girls the refrain verse of Aretha Franklin’s classic “Respect” in English. We translated the words into French for them, so they could understand the concept, but they quickly picked up on the rhythm and the flow of the original. When we played the song at the closing ceremony that evening, all the girls sang ‘Respect,” screaming their lungs out during the refrain. I loved watching them fail their arms in the air, swaying their little bodies back and forth to the “sock it to me, sock it tome, sock it to me” verse. When we told them that and African American woman was singing the song, they were even more impressed. That’s the thing about a good song; it doesn’t need translation - it just needs a beat and a chorus.

Out With The Old, In With The New

Tomorrow, I leave for the big city of Cotonou. I was voted VAC representative for the Borgou region, which means from now on, I will act as a liaison between the Peace Corps Benin administration and the volunteers of the Borgou region to address any problems or concerns they are having in their service. I think it’s a great position, because I get to debate, stand up for volunteer ideas and rights, and collaborate with my peers and staff to create a better service experience for everyone.

Yet, even cooler than that, on Friday, July 16th, a new group of potential volunteers will be arriving in country. It is a tradition for the preceding stage of volunteers to go down and greet the new stage, and it was a very fun, exciting event for me last year. I am all amped up to pay it forward. But, as change goes, when new stagieres come in, it means older volunteers are packing up their things and moving on their way. It will be sad to see some of my good friends and mentors leave, but I am thrilled to start anew with a fresh batch of bright-eyed and bushy-tailed newbies all ready to sign-up and change the world. It’s great to see that enthusiasm in people. It’s great to have the enthusiasm returned back to me.

It’s amazing what a difference one year, some hard work, a lot of learning, and a little rain can make.

International Women’s Day Comes to Kalale

Hear ye! Hear ye! Women around the world - we are definitely making progress! Amidst the rubbish and rubble, from inside the mud huts and throughout my tiny village of Kalale, magistrates, mayors, community administrators, counselors, governmental officials, and functioniers from around the Borgou department came to my tiny, respectable commune of Kalale to support and celebrate the education, health, and protection of WOMEN. In the year of Our Lord 2010, on March 8th, thousands of Beninese citizens from surrounding cities and villages gathered to watch as Kalale hosted it’s first-ever fête for the advance of African women, and it was a party for the ages. There were prizes and awards, honorable guest speakers, traditional dances, skits, and presentations. But most of all - and perhaps most importantly - there was a beautiful and wondrous array of men and women from a variety of ethic backgrounds there to pay homage to the fairer sex.

In my small realm of esteem, our girls club, Club GLOW (Girls Leading Our World), was asked by the mayor of Kalale to present a dance routine and a skit of their own creation at the festival. For almost three months, our girls practiced weekly, and as show time neared, they practiced daily, to perfect their presentation. A week before they were slated to perform, the girls came to my house to practice their routine in an effort to guard it from public view before the Big Day. Taking a note from my Mom and Dad, I wanted to be an apt hostess, providing them with water, biscuits, and their favorite - popcorn! Hell hath no fury like fifteen Beninese preteens attacking a large metal bowl of salted popcorn. But all their hard work paid off grandly. When it was time to perform, the Kalale Club GLOW girls delivered - three dance routines an a wonderfully funny sketch about a young girl and her grandmother walking by a school, and other girls encouraging the young girl to come and practice her alphabet and reading. Literacy for women! (It is important to note that even here, in the commune head, 60% of women are illiterate and nearly 80% cannot speak the national language of French.)

I was proud as a peacock. Our girls did tremendously! As is custom, during their dance and skit, audience members showed their appreciation by placing bills of currency on the girls’ foreheads. The girls raised 35 mille francs CFA for Club GLOW (approximately $70 American). The talk around town the next few days of the girls’ performance was twofold: everyone loved their performance and thought it was insightful and inspiring, but they almost couldn’t help but notice they girls lacked … oh, how to put this as politely as most commenting villagers attempted to … couth. Essentially, the word on the street in Kalale was - Club GLOW was a group of brilliant, young, talented, intelligent, beautiful … brat children!

To be honest, my post mate and partner in advising the club, Jocylin, and I had taken note of this for a while. Most of our girls came from village families of means, meaning that they had enough money and support to not want for most of the essential items of life (food, shelter, education, clothing), but they still had a very “from the village” mindset that kept them from engendering basic social graces such as manners and tact. The girls did costume changes (which required them to disrobe quite a bit) in the presence of young men. They did not offer thanks or any signs of gratitude towards those who offered praise. They were greedy and rabid when it came to dispensing praise, commemorative t-shirts, and food. Jocylin and I had our work cut out for us, and so we started …

Jocylin and Loren’s Club GLOW Reform School for Girls

The name pretty much sums it up. We quickly realized, as advisors of a club thats sole intention was to support the integrity, advancement, education, and professionalism of young girls, we had better start with the basics.

Now granted, if you know anything about me as a person, you know that I am not the Queen of Social Graces. As a child, at dinner, my mother would regard quite matter-of-factly that my table manners were akin to those of Atilla the Hun. (Mom - I will have you know that I now live in a society where it is not only acceptable, but expected, that you eat with your hands.) I spent countless summers in Connecticut with my Aunt Arlene and Uncle Ray as they kindly and gently persuaded me into proper use of silverware at dinner, placing a napkin on my lap, chewing with my mouth closed, and blessing the table with a simple grace before eating like a civilized young women of good breeding. I picked up a thing or two along the way, and rather unexpectedly, I came into my role as Madame Loren Lee: Reform School Governess.

The goal was basic and clear-cut. The girls needed to learn how to behave in public like respectful young women if they ever intended to one day grow up and become respectable women. At our first club meeting after the International Women’s Day festival, we went over some social graces. Use, “s’il vous plait” to ask politely for something. If you are given a gift or regarded with a kindness, offer a gentle, “Merci.” Form lines to accept hand-outs given in mass. (Oddly enough, as I’ve mention before, line formation has never occurred to most Beninese people. It’s usually just a blob of people yelling and vying for position. It boggles my mind how this place has cell phone service, but refuse to form lines). We also explained that they now had developing female bodies that they were growing into their rightful feminine forms, and it was no longer appropriate to change in front of curious young boys. It was important they kept their cleavage, midriff, and backside covered at all times in public. The girls were very responsive. We did a few activities to demonstrate how each new social grace worked and affected not only their behavior but the behaviors of the people around them. Jocylin and I gave out stickers to the girls, if they formed a civilized line and said “please” and “thank you.” We practice eating politely and generously in public with large bowls of popcorn (we noticed they couldn’t get enough of the stuff, even if they were passing it around graciously and taking small, reasonable handfuls). Yet, just as my Mom, Aunt, and Uncle taught me, the road to being a Respectable Woman is long and paved with endless amounts of practice, patience, and - as to be expected - guffaws.

Kernels in Kalale

As you may have noticed, popcorn has been a reoccurring theme in this blog entry. In Kalale, corn is not a staple starch. It is hard to find it outside of the major cities. Likewise, the kernels used to make popcorn are just as scarce, therefore, having popcorn in village is a rare treat and a delicacy. So here we are, in a village with an open segment in the market for popcorn and girls club that has just recently raised 35 mille CFA performing at a festival.

As soon as Jocylin and I realized this, a light bulb when off in our minds: We found a niche market! The girls could sell popcorn and raise money for the club. Suddenly, my Girls Scout days of selling cookies came flooding back to me. They could use the money they had just earned and reinvested in the club - in themselves - in order to gain greater rewards, such as trips into a big city like Parakou for a nice dinner or new khaki uniforms and supplies for school. The market was in need and the opportunity for fundraising was endless. Jocylin and I proposed the idea to the girls, and they were all in agreement. Just as quickly, my year as a partner at PrintPOD, Inc. came back to me: the hours I spent in front of a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet with Mike crunching numbers on quantity, input, output, costs, values, gains, and expenses. We would apply the same business principles I learned in running a start-up company with organizing a popcorn vending operation. Once we crunched the numbers, we realized the girls stood to gain a hefty profit by selling their popcorn on Market Day, at school events, sporting games, and at administrative festivals.

And so, Kalale Korn was born! Jocylin and I showed the girls how to pop the kernels in a large metal bowl over a fire using oil and seasoning the corn with salt. It was easy; and the girls, being naturals at cooking over an open flame and knowing how to prepare food, were quick studies. In its premiere week of sales, the girls sold their popcorn at the middle school’s Track and Field Games Day. It has been a huge success thus far.

I really think this is the best example of what amazes me about the Peace Corps. As a teacher, I came in knowing exactly what I was going to be doing - teaching English - but never in my life did I think I would be using my small business background to help young girls became entrepreneurs. You learn to expand yourself, you learn the true depths of what you as an educated, experienced person have to share with other people, and you are given the opportunity to explore and challenge yourself to try it out. Let me tell you, firsthand, there is no feeling in the world that compares to looking at girl with empowerment and self-esteem glowing in her young, bright eyes and knowing that you help put that there.

Neebo’s Nook

Because many of you have asked about his well-being in e-mails, letters, and Facebook messages, I figured I would take this opportunity to let you know that my little man is doing just fine. Neebo is reigning supreme cat here in Kalale. He is far and away the fattest cat in town, and if I do say so myself, the sweetest and most handsome.

Neebo continues his Reign of Terror over cockroaches, lizards, mice and the like, which puts him in my good graces. In one of his most recent exploits, Neebo decided to climb the mango tree outside my house at 1:00 AM, only to find that he was too much of a scaredy-cat to climb down. So, being the doting pet owner that I am, I strapped on my head lamp in the middle of the night and climbed the mango tree in my nightgown to rescue dear Neebo from his summit. Most days he is much less adventurous and expends most of his energy napping away in various cool spots around the house.

All kidding aside, Neebo is an excellent cat. And, if you are so inclined to send me a package, please to remember my dear kitty. My Aunt Tracy has spoiled him, and he does enjoy American kitty treats.

Yes, We Can! (Opener)

It really is the little things in life that make you smile.

In my concession there is a small boutique that vends a lot of household basics: pasta, tomato sauce, candy, rice, toilet paper, things like that. In that boutique, almost everyday of the week, there is a twelve year-old girl named Baké. Baké, for all intents and purpose, is the indentured servant of the couple that lives at the end of my concession. She is the niece of Madame Felix, who owns the boutique. As is common practice here, Baké lives and works for Madame Felix , and in return, they educate, feed, and clothe her. For the most part, it is a symbiotic relationship.

One day, as I walked over to the boutique to buy some milk powder, I noticed Baké kneeling over a gigantic can of tomato paste, sweat flowing from every pore in her body, pounding away at the tin lid with a massive stone and a dull kitchen knife. I asked her if she needed any help. Of course, being the sweet girl she is, she said no and diligently pressed on attempting to open the tomato paste.

As I walked away from the shop, it suddenly dawned on me - I had a spare can opener lying around my house. My parents had sent me a really great super-grip opener from America, but being the second Volunteer to live a chez Americaine, I already had an old, duller opener in a bin somewhere. I quickly found it, and brought it out to Baké.

I hand it over to her and said, “Here a cadeau (a gift), for you.” She looked at me completely puzzled, but stretched out her arm to take the funny black and metal device. I realized she had no idea what it was. So, instead, I told her to hand me the big can of tomato paste. Easily, I placed the opener on the rim and began to crank. As I wound around the edge of the lid, Baké’s eyes began to glow with excitement. Then they began to tear as she realize how much easier it would all be from here on out. I handed her back the opened tin can and the opener, and she smiled at me with awe and amazement. I’m sure it mirrored the look on my face as well.

To think, all it took to crack that smile wide open was a can opener. Ah, alas, yet another mini miracle in Africa.

In Memory of Kate

This March 12th marked the one year anniversary of the death of Peace Corps Benin Volunteer Kate Puzey. In Cotonou, sixty Volunteers, along with Peace Corps Administrators, American Embassy workers, and the Ambassador to Benin, gathered together to memorialize the life and service of a fellow Volunteer. This being my first year in-country, I had never met Kate. I’d only even been told delightful stories of her work and her amazing personality by other Volunteers that knew her.

It was a simple ceremony held at the Peace Corps Benin Bureau Headquarters. It included a candle-lighting ceremony, words from friends and Volunteers, and speeches by Peace Corps Staff and the Ambassador. However, the segment of the ceremony that resonated most with me was a ten minute slide show of photos of Kate throughout her service. In those photos, she became real to me. I could relate to the girl sitting on the rocks of lagoon underneath a waterfall in Tanguetta; the teacher standing up at the blackboard in front a classroom of Beninese students; a helpful friend cooking food with a woman from her village. Through those photos, I saw fragments of memories that will become the landscape of my own service here in Benin. She was just like me. A young, hopeful, optimistic Volunteer who came to Benin to teach English and who learned so much more than she could ever be taught. As I mentioned, I never got to know Kate, but I feel in some ways, I do know her. We walked the same path; I am just following the footprints that she left behind.

Adieu, dear Kate.

You’re What The French Call, “Villegois”

Oh, life in a little African village! Just as in America, there are some dramatic lifestyle differences between those of us who live in little towns scattered along dirt roads and those who live amongst the hustle and bustle of big city chaos. The shock and awe of the differences are evident in simple utterances quibbled back in forth on post visits between Volunteers:

From a city-kid: “Wait, what do you mean that you can’t buy baguette bread here? Where do you live?”

From a townie: “They are charging me HOW MANY francs for HOW MUCH rice? Do you spend all your money on food?!”

In small towns, everybody knows your name, and likewise, everyone expects a formal greeting at every meeting and re-meeting during the day. In large cities, you can blend in more easily among a large, diverse crowd, but sometimes, you don’t even really get to know your own neighbors. In little villages, the people are a little less civilized, the food is a little more authentic, and the smiles come from the heart. Village life suits me just fine. Here in Kalale, I’ve had the opportunity to delve into four very unique local languages, dance around a drum circle with old, bare-breasted tanties, show off my beloved hamlet to as a budding tour guide. Big city - eat your heart out … here’s my story of life on the wild side.

A Hello-Line Without a Chord in Its Butt

I recently read a quote from ex-pat and one-time New Yorker columnist Adam Gopnik, in which he says: “We breathe in our first language and swim in our second.” Nothing could be closer to the truth. I finally have reached a point in my French language ability where I know I can swim. I’m not going to drown if I’m suddenly thrust into an argument over the price of a piece of jewelry or a new shirt. Go, ahead, get me lost on the way to the bus station … I have the vocabulary to get me where I need to go. But at times, as I listen to the Michael Phelpses around me prattle off in lightening-speed français, I realize that I am still very much in the lap lane, putting my tail between my legs and surrendering to the doggie paddle. However, I am keeping afloat, so I figured now was about the time I should try my hand a learning some of the tribal tongues spoken in my village.

As I’ve forestated, there are four commonly spoken African languages in Kalale: Peuhl (the language of the Fulani tribe), Bo-ka (a language solely spoken in the commune of Kalale), Bariba (the most widely spoken language in the Borgou department), and Yoruba (the most commonly spoken tribal language in Nigeria). Because of our proximity to Nigeria, our unique cluster of Fulani tribe, and our outskirted position between the Alibori and Borgou departments of Benin, each language is easy to differentiate among when spoken, but you can never guess who speaks what. Sometimes, seeing and old woman cloaked in a Muslim hajab with broken teeth and a little bit of a cellulous demeanor, I’ll choose Bariba and greet her with, “A-BWAN-DOH” (or good morning) She, in turn, looks at me bug-eyed, as if I just went rambling away in English, and kindly responds, “NAH-PIN-DAY” (hello in Peuhl). It’s enough to drive a person mad, but that isn’t even the worst of it.

When speaking in another language, I’ve found that your brain in some way switches over and starts allowing you to think and process words different in the other language. In French, for instance, I am not twenty-three years old, but instead I have twenty-three years (this occurs in other romance languages as well). In French, I am not hot, but I have heat, or for that matter, coldness. Like my age, I am in possession of my temperature in French, the ruler of its domain and power, whereas, in English, it is a part of me and the very structure of who I am. What separates thinking in French from thinking in say, Peuhl, is that French language and culture progressed on a similar timeline and trajectory with the English language. The introduction of electricity and cell phones and motorcycles opened up the brain to a slew of new vocabulary without enough time for the rough edges of its formation to be smoothed over. There was no opportunity for progression like that. Like most developing countries, Benin went straight from being without telephones, without the infrastructure of land lines, to having cell phone towers in every commune head serving just about everyone you can shake a stick at with his or her own personal, portable, internet-accessible, music-playing, hand-held phone. Therefore, the progression of the vocabulary evolution became very rushed as well. So, you have great words like the Bo-ka term for mobile phone, “A-HA TA-QUE-SADA MA-FAN-DOH,” which literally translate to “a hello-line without a chord in its butt.” A “hello line” derived from the words for hello and clothesline are with words for a traditional, land line phone, which are very, very rare. Because a mobile phone is indeed a phone, but is not bound to any particular place with a “chord in its butt” or a line at the end of it, it has given its long and exasperating title, “a hello-line without a chord in its butt.” But it is hard to think in a language like that, when you can not predict where on Earth the origins of the word parts are coming from.

Sometimes, local language is just fun and funny. For instance, in a typical Beninese greeting, you go through a series of questions you ask a person in order to give them a respectful salutation. The greeting goes: “Hello! How are you? How is your work? How is your health? How is your family? How did you sleep?” Bariba is a wonderful language, with many responses being as simple as saying, very dismissively, “OH” (making sure to keep your mouth dramatically locked in the shape of an “O”) or grunting. Yet, in order to answer the question: “How is your health?” in a positive and chipper manner (the preferred method amongst those living in Kalale), you simply pump your fists in the air and say, “BONG! BONG!” Go ahead, say it. Do it. It’s great fun. You actually feel like you are in good health pumping away, wrists flailing in the air, saying cute phrases like that. Peuhl, on the other hand, is not so much fun as it is beautiful. You learn pull as an outsider, I think, because of the grace and elegant flow of the words. It is a like a ballet being dance using your tongue and breath as its stage. When Peuhl speakers get into heated or excited conversations, it almost seems as if they are singing at one another, competing over who can outshine the other in a choral recital.

Learning languages is a passion of mine, In my short life, I’ve studied five world languages and four tribal languages and I must say, I am only really fluent in one. I guess the moral of the story is to just breathe easy and keep swimming.

Band On The Run

I am not the first American to arrive in Africa and become completely enthralled by its music. In fact, I have a strong lineage of famous predecessors that have come to Africa with the sole purpose of being engulfed by its beats, ensnared by its drums, and brought to their feet, dancing, jumping, and jiving in simulation of the Africans themselves.

For millennia, it has been a global, cultural traditions for musicians to take their talents on the road, roaming from place to place, spreading their beats and harmonies, telling life histories with their lyrics, and in so doing, becoming a critical part of the social fabric. Kalale is no exception to this cross-cultural phenomenon, and it too has its own brand of visiting troubadours. One regular Friday morning, I trekked across town to my post mate’s concession and lo and behold, stumbled upon one of African’s finest traveling musicians. Armed with a small violin-type instruments made from hemp strings and a dried, hollowed out gourd, the troubador serenaded me. His lyrics were sweet and simple: “Bonjour, Madame, ah-hey, Bonjour, Madame.” Yet, his beats were complex, uplifting, and enchanting. I sat down next to him and let him sing to me as he smiled at with a wide, picket-fence grin in his frayed tunic. When his beautiful overture ended, I threw him a few francs and he thanked me generously. Truly, I was the one who was indebted. How many people wake up to their own, sweet personal serenade?

During the last weekend in February, in the village of Nikki, almost seventy kilometers due south of Kalale, there is an annual festival called Gaani that brings in people from all over Benin to celebrate the culture and traditions of the Bariba tribe. Thousands flock to Nikki for the weekend festivities to take in the art and crafts shows, watch the beautiful horse parade, and partake in a myriad of different traditional dances, music, and cuisine. In Kalale, the Bariba people here have been preparing to show off their musical inclinations for weeks. Relentless rehearsals of skits and shows flood our narrow, dirt alley ways, little by little filling the pathways of the village with music and dance. Last Sunday morning, after going into town to grab some brunch (and omelet sandwich at a local café), I was drawn into following a particularly rowdy crowd’s music. A dozen or so musicians gathered in the street, of the hems of a red dirt road banging away passionately at their instruments. There were leather and wood tom tom drums, gourd violins, tin and glass bottle xylophones, and of course, a herd of topless old woman, shaking their dignified, acrobatic, wrinkly bodies to the rhythm of the band. It was glorious.

At first I stood back in awe, kicking myself at another golden photo opportunity lost because I hadn’t thought to bring my camera. Then, a group of my students spotted me in the crowd (granted, I am quite easy to spot), and convinced me to go dancing with the women. At first I pleaded ineptitude. Then I argued that I born with two left feet, essentially rendering me incapable of coordination (which seemed to puzzle them enough until they actually looked at my feet … I suppose some idioms don’t quite translate). Finally, out of excuses and too intrigued not to try, I stepped up to the dance circle and started shaking my body with the women. They all spoke Bariba, and I spoke only European languages. But it didn’t matter. Feebly, I attempted to mimic their dances moves. Realizing quickly I stood no chance, I did what I do best… I channeled my inner Beyonce and started doing the bootylicious butt bump. Boy, oh boy, was that a crowd please. Much to my surprise, several of the women and young girls began copying me, giving dear Ms. Knowles a run for her money in the derriere-dropping department!

Sometimes, you just have to dance to the beat of your own tom tom drummer.

Les Tourists Americains

Kalale is currently the proud owner of what may become known as one of the Wonders of the Sustainable Third World. In a little village within the commune head of Kalale, are the Gardens of Basassi. The gardens are a model for Peace Corps Volunteers and attract visitors from all around the world to come and revel in the irrigation juggernaut that is the Solar Garden. Community run and operated, the gardens produce an enormous amount of agricultural products from the commune using a system of solar panels to operation irrigation pumps that keep the plants moist despite the desert-like arid climate. It truly is a marvel to behold.

Enter Ray and Bence. Ray and Bence are a tag-team group of IT consultants sent from San Francisco as project developers to oversee the achievements of their company’s funds. Two weeks of their five week-long business sojourn were to be spent recording and relaying the progress and development of the Gardens at Basassi. My post mate, Jocylin, an environmental volunteer, was working with the group, making sure they were able to oversee the technical aspects of their trip. I, on the other hand, quickly adapted to the role of Cultural Ambassador to Fun and Amusement in Kalale. It was my job to make sure they interacted with a wide group of different people, saw the fairs and wares of Market Day, and figured out where to get a nice, cold beer after a long day of working in the fields.

What surprised me most was how open they were to meeting the people of Kalale. They offered to come into my English classes as a part of a show-and-tell day. They spent the mornings teaching children’s songs (complete with hand motions) to my students. The play list included “The Itsy-Bitsy Spider,” the Beach Boys “Do Run Run,” the classic “If You’re Happy and You Know It.” The went snap-happy documenting their lessons through camera frames. My students, of course, enthusiastically mugged for the cameras, That very next afternoon, as I walked to school for my evening class, I saw a group of my students sitting in a circle jumbling the words while perfecting the motions to “Itsy-Bitsy Spider.“

As Cultural Ambassador to Fun and Amusement, I learned something very critical about my service. I am happy here. This village life suits me very well for where I’m at in my life, and I am more than proud to show it off whenever I get the chance. I’ve become comfortable and confident enough here to not only call his place my home away from home, but a place I can’t stop talking, writing, thinking, and caring about. Pull out the “Bienvenue” mat, Kalale - Madame Loren Lee is coming home.

An American Wish List a.k.a. Pandering for Packages

I must start off with this: Thank you, thank you, Merci beaucoup to everyone who has been kind to send me a care package here in Benin. The contents of this packages are cherished, beloved, shared, and enjoyed and each little package reminds me that there is someone out there - in a land far, far away - thinking of me. In an effort the quell the demand on my parents of interested person wondering what would be good items to send to Loren in Africa, I’ve decided to make a list of things that I need, things I would love, and things I’ve most certainly got a good supply of.

Again, thanks for sending, thanks for reading, thanks for caring. I love you all.

Food Items: I really cannot get enough of American food products. These are a great need. I am not eating the meat here (because I see the goat eating garbage and drinking turgid, green water the day before they barbeque it and attempt to serve it to me), so anything with protein is great. Also, candy is wonderful. I love popping hard candy and just letting the memories of America melt in my mouth, but they also are great bartering tools for young kids in my neighborhood who help me with chores but refuse to take money. I have access to filtered water here by pump, but refrigeration is limited and expensive. Therefore, I use water flavoring packets to make the temperate water go down the old pipes a little more smoothly. I suggest Hawaii Punch and Crystal Lite to-go mixes, but I have an adventurous palate and am always open to surprises. Also, I just have a small, gas table top stove here, but I can use food meals that are pre-packaged and just add water, butter, and milk (think Ramen and mac & cheese). Here are some ideas on the food front:

Twizzlers, canned meats (tuna, chicken, clams, salmon, ham), Slim Jims, beef jerky, M&Ms, hard candies, Ramen noodles, boxed macaroni and cheese, mashed potato packets, Alfredo, spaghetti, and pesto sauce mixes, soup packets, Pringles, rice seasonings, Power Bars, trail mix, granola, mixed cocktail nuts, dried fruit, brownie mix, cake batter, cookie mix, spray cheese, crackers.

American Media and Photos: As you know, I am an avid reader and news hound, so being without my fix of written and pictorial media does leave a hole in heart. I would love news article clippings, transcripts of important media sound bites, tabloids, journals, and magazines. Fashion magazines are excellent, because I use them as sources of inspiration of dress designs I have made here (and my African seamstress loves to see what is all the rage in America). Also, I can not get enough pictures of my friends and family. Please send me current or old photos of friends and family so I can proudly display them around my house. Having everyone around, even just on glossy paper, keeps the homesickness away.

Toiletry Items: I live in the Third World without running water, so I’m going to venture and say that it would be impossible for me to have too much antibacterial liquid hand sanitizer. Please send me the big bottles. I love the stuff! The hard, clean after-scent of rubbing alcohol has quickly become one of my favorite scents in all the world. Hell hath no fury like Loren on a microbe-killing spree. (Along this line, antibacterial hand wipes are also useful). I can always use Q-tips. The are a great, multitasking little tool, and I go through them quite quickly, so I could always use restocking. I have very attractive blood to mosquitoes, and my skin is usually painfully freckled with bite marks, so spare my skin and feel free to send some heavy-duty, alpha male bug spray. I’d much appreciate it.

Items I’m Well Stocked In: I’d like to say a special “Thanks” here to Mike and Jackie and the Holub family for making sure that I have everything I’d every need in the way of craft supplies, art materials, school, and office supplies. Also, as the second Volunteer living in my house, I inherited a generous amount of crafting supplies. I am actually so endowed with crayons that I had a Crayola Give-Away Day for the children living in my concession (and oh boy, did they love it). So, please, don’t waste the space in a package with any of the above. I’ve got more than my fair share and enough to go around the village.

Three Cups of Tea in Benin

It is a tradition as old as civilized culture, I believe, to sit down with those whose company you enjoy a share a steaming cup of something and discuss topics of the world, of life, of liberty, misadventure - you, know coffee shop banter.

I have come to enjoy the taking of tea here in Benin. Several times a week, I am invited to tea with my good friend Souleman and several other familiar faces he conjures to share in the joys of drinking. We assemble under the shade of the mango outside his boutique, and we delight in small talk as he prepares the liquid lovin’. Now, being an ex-Starbucks employee, I have seen my fair share of café accoutrement, but the preparation of this tea is so deliberate and delicate, so crafted and cared for, it greatly outshines the simplicity of its preparatory instruments. In a small metal canister, that looks more carafe than teapot, the basic ingredients are applied to the pot - loose aromatic leaves, raw grainy sugar, and water. The pot is than shaken - not unlike a martini - and nestled in between red, burning coals in a small fire pit. Then we wait - the process is slow-building and soothing - so we use just enjoy one another’s company, the sun on our faces, the soft Harmattan zephyrs flowing through the lazy shade of the trees. As the fire strengthens, so does the brew, and soon enough, the canister is steaming from the spout, ready to be poured through the simple screen into glasses for our refreshment.

There three very distinct rounds of tea that get poured from each canister. More often than not, there are not enough tiny, glass shot glass-like tasses to go around, so we share. As with most things in West Africa, there is a tradition, a purpose, a tale behind the communal consumption of tea. According to folklore, the first round of tea is “bitter like death.“ The second round of tea is “sweet like love.” The third round is “sugary like life.” The week before I was set to leave on my holiday vacation on safari, I did my finally bidding of good-byes to my village friends, and my dear friend Souleman invited me to afternoon tea to celebrate the New Year early. Of course, I enthusiastically accepted. However, I thought, in honor of the New Year, in the spirit of welcoming the new and reflecting upon the old, I held to take this tea in remembrance.

Bitter Like Death

The first drip is very, very potent - a taste bud tour de force. As I throw it back against the palette, I can’t help but feel reminiscent of taking shots of cheap whiskey at a drive bar; your face turns disgusted before your lips part of to accept the sacrament. This round is “bitter like death.” And like death, you don’t look forward to it; it’s a shock to the system, but it’s soberingly expected. At the very end of November, I experienced my first death in village. A woman who lived in the concession next to mine dropped death of heart failure in her kitchen - in front of her husband, children, nieces and nephews while preparing food for the Muslim festival of Tabaski. She was not a woman of great wealth or public stature. She held no celebratory, martyred no great cause - yet regardless - everyone in the town grieved her loss. Boutiques closed to show their respect and condolences. It was almost as if everyone in town lost their Mama, their Tanti, their Tata. The outpouring was incredible. It reminded me a Jewish shivah. People came to the family’s concession, baring food and deserts, sat in circles around family next to kin, and shared stories celebrating this simple woman’s life. Her bereavement was overnight; a hole was dug near her family’s concession, her body was buried, and the grave covered in multi-colored stones. A month before I left for Benin, I lost two people very close to me. My childhood friend Michelle’s mother lost her yearlong battle with a brain tumor. In the same week, my neighbor, mentor, and confidant, Edward Osborn, succumbed to his fight against cancer. Truly, it was a godsend to me that I got to see them alive and say goodbye before I left for the Peace Corps. In honor of Mama, Yasmin, and Ed, I swallowed my own bitterness over the inescapable loss that is essential to every life.

Sweet Like Love

There is an old adage proclaiming, “Absence from love is like the wind; it is extinguishes small flames and strengthens great bonfires.” After spending five months, miles oceans, and continents away from all the people and things I’ve ever loved, I’ve learned just how true that expression really is. When the second round of tea, is poured, it is incredibly saccharine. Left steeping, the sugar granules melange with the sweet aromatic flavors of fresh, green tea and it goes down, smooth and easily. As I sip, it’s almost impossible not to be reminded of the incredibly decadence that is the gift of loving. So close to the holiday season, it’s easy to get caught up in the whirlwind and stresses of present-buying, food preparation, Christmas caroling, light-stringing, and the general anxieties of holidays. But in Benin, there is a complete absence of all those distractions. No mega malls with electronic Santas singing holly jolly tunes. No mass-marketing of “sales” and “deals.” You are forced to focus on the simplicity of the season, and the reason for it’s existence in the first place. Even those so subscribe to a more secular view of the holidays have to note it’s magic. You can almost feel the difference as Christmas Eve approaches, as everyone you love - friends, relatives, acquaintances - flow in from all corners of life and celebrate being together. Christmastime (and Hanukkah for that matter) is about being with the people you love, breaking bread, and celebrating the joys of togetherness. It’s not always easy to remember that when you’re caught up in the glitz and glamour and clamor of the holidays, but in less commercially congested part of the world, it’s lot simpler to focus on what you love and who you miss. I am very fortunate that I have found many loves in Benin. The friends I have made, who share the unique bond being here with me - of being Volunteers - and have brought great happiness, joy, and affability to my time in Africa. I spent my holiday with about twenty other Volunteers in the northern city of Kandi, and it helped all of us being together during a time of the year specifically reserved for celebrations with the closest of kin. I have the respect and love of the community of Kalale; I love my job as an English teacher; I love the feeling of the hot, African sun shining down on me as a walk to work in the morning; Pirate love letters plundering my inbox. I am happy here, and I have been happy here, because I found love here. It must be noted that, even though I have opened my heart to this place, I could never have transitioned so easily without the tremendous amount of love and support from home. For all the letters, phone calls, words of wisdom, care packages, and little blurbs and updates on life, I am forever grateful to all those who I left behind five months ago. You are in my thoughts, a part of all my actions, patterns, and quirks, in the stories I tell of my American life. So, I took my second cup of tea, and I as it warms my chest, I can feel the same warmth rising from my heart, reminding me that now, I have expanded my love around the world. A little bit of a sickeningly sweet statement - oui - but so true.

Sugary Like Life

Variety is the spice of life, “they” say. Well, I suppose it “variety” had an actual tang, it would probably be sugary. Sugar is everywhere, and in general, is universally loved. Shooting the last glass of tea, all the flavors of the brew hit you at once. All the sugar that has amassed at the bottom of the canister, the deep simmering flavor of sitting tea leaves, the hot water that has been the kept closest to the coals - it is the most varied and magical tasting round of tea. I have had no trouble finding the versatility of sugar in my life. When a neighbor generously offers to help me string a clothesline I am struggling to McGuyver (much akin to “borrowing a cup of sugar from your neighbor). The giving of a big, warm, bear hug to a grieving woman who has just lost her mother (“Gimme some sugar“). I often use sugary biscuits to bride my students to participate more in class (a highly effective method). Even though sugar came be found quite easily in most parts of the world, it is usually a pricy commodity, and Benin follows that general rule. Because it is expensive, many people have not developed an immense craving taste for it the way it is gorged on in the States. But, alas, there is an exception to every rule. My post mate and I have befriend one of the town’s barbers, and I am pretty sure he is hypoglycemic. He is rail-thin, but he eats like his next meal may never come! He has a sweet-tooth like I’ve never seen before. He is constantly force-feeding himself cookies, cakes, sucking on lollipops and licorice candies. It’s unbelievable! When we dine with him, he is always so generous in generously distributing his supply of sweets, that we have taken to calling him Papa Sucre (Sugar Daddy), and he loves it. But he is also a very interesting, well-versed, traveled man. He runs his barber business, takes on odd jobs in the big cities of Parakou and Cotonou. He is endlessly interested in American customs and culture. He is fluent in more languages than anyone else I know in village. He is always up for a road trip or a refreshing nightly walk around town. He is always introducing us to friends and acquaintances new and old - and it’s a pleasure to hang out with the characters he bring around. Papa Sucre has found the sugar in his life, and it has made him a sweeter man for it. As Volunteers, it is a part of our job description to integrate, to adapt and change, to constantly immerse ourselves in the varieties of our surrounding. But I have found, that often times, it accomplishing those tasks are better done without a lot of impetus on our end. Just sit back, take in the world around you, approach everything different and new with and open mind and heart, and you will be changed for the better - life becomes a lot sweeter. There are so many sweet things life here has to offer - learning new languages, dancing to African music in the streets with children, a surprise serenade by a traveling minstrel playing a gourde violin, walking through the beautiful, multi-colored forests as the sun looms overhead, sprinkling the day with warm and light. The sweetness rubs off onto other facets of your life as you move through it. So, with my last sip of tea, I must remember to find the sweetness in everyday things as I approach the New Year, take time to enjoy the tea, and pass the cup around.

The Park Pendjari

As I have aforementioned, I had the amazing opportunity to spend my holiday vacation this year on safari in West Africa. In the northwestern corner of Benin, is the Park Pendjari - a chunk of Benin used solely as a wildlife preserve that is opened from December through June for safari expeditions. Most of the tourists of this particular park, are European thrill-seekers, local expats, and Peace Corps Volunteers, but they run a good business, and the park is lovely. My good friend Cara is posted near the park, and her assignment as a Small Economic Development volunteer is to facilitate tourism for the park. Well, Cara, being the brilliant mind she is, decided to look no further than her own peer group in rallying troops to support the park. In mid-October, a group of eight of us decided to go on safari at the Park for the holidays in the hopes of spending some time together and having a little African adventure.

Beep, Beep. Who’s Got the Keys to the Jeep ? Vroom . . .

The object of the game when going on safari is quite obvious: see as many animals as possible over the course of three days and two evenings while caravanning atop a large, old Volkswagen van, not alike that used by the Partridge Family. Each day, we’d go out into the brush twice on approximately four-hour long stints, once at dawn and again at twilight. When we got to the entrance of the park, our guide told us to climb onto the roof of the van to get the most scenic view. So, like eager little lemmings, all of us piled atop of van, eyes wide open, just waiting for a lion to attack and gazelle while grazing the vast plains whizzing by us. At first we were snap happy with the cameras around our wrists and necks, taking picture of every little deer and antelope that roamed. But after a bumpy, dusty three-hour tour through the park to our hotel site, we arrived slightly sunburnt and feeling a little empty handed. When we checked in, we asked other safari-goers of their finding, and we hear one Big Fish story after another of lion-sighting, elephant-spottings, hippopotamus photo-ops, and lush, beautiful scenery. We all turned as green and bitter with envy and anxious, debating back and forth on where or not to fire our tour guide and replace him with a better version, to insist on taking the paths of the more fortunate safari spectators. A long afternoon dip in the ground’s pool cooled off our raging tempers. All our griping was put to rest as well settled on waiting for our second tour of the day at twilight before we made any rash decisions about reorganizing our tour and manpower. So, at 16:30 hours, we all boarded the top of our van again, waiting in vain for the twilight to turn out the cast of the Lion King. But as we pulled, back into the park that night, our hopes were shot down like a bird in the sky, and we returned to the hotel that night with little more the scenic vistas of African terrain and a few shots of deadbeat buffalo trapped in the lenses of our point-and-shoot camera. We ate dinner at the restaurant, drowned our sorrows of an unfortunate day of safari sight-seeing in cold beer, and went to bed with a bitter outlook on what once promised to be the adventure of a lifetime.

Welcome to the Jungle, We’ve got Fun and Games

We woke the second morning, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed with the glowing African sunrise, infused with new enthusiasm that today would bring us more luck than yesterday. We embarked atop the van again, wrapped in blankets and sweaters in the cool morning. We cool see the cool fog of our warm breath in the cold, morning air, and something felt different about this sunrise - today was our day to capture Mother Nature, Mama Africa, in all her glory. And deliver she did! As the sunlight broke through the horizon around us, we were taken aback by the beauty of the colors against the sparse, black outlines of the horizons. Brilliant shades of orange, red, yellow, and gold ripped through the early morning black, blues, and purples, dancing between sprawling cracks of morning sun. It hit our shoulders, necks, and backs, warming us slowly and gently, encouraging us of better things to come in the day. As the day brightened, we snaked into a jungle path - grand canopy trees turning everything a glistening green in the sunlight. Just then, Sam yelled, “Arret! Ici! Ici!” The guide stopped immediately and we looked after where his finger pointed, and lo and behold - JACKPOT! A large, brown elephant stood camouflaged between equally massive tree trunks, slowly, yet mightily, lifting his trunk to munch of twiggy tree branches. Click, click, click - our cameras flashed as fast as we could manage, and a rush of hope ignited us all. Once the elephant disappeared into the brush, so did we, continue on our sojourn through the park. Snaking through the park, we looked as brightly colored birds fluttered through treetops, singing songs of the African wild, and small game scurried around in the high-rise grasses. Next stop, the hippo lookout. It was a small, covered wooden porch resting on the banks of a lake in the middle of the park, rather gluttonously referred to as Mare Bari (calling it “sea” seemed like a grave overstatement of size and proportion to me). At the lookout point, we saw large lumps of black flesh almost completed submerged in water. Hippos are rather aggressive monsters who spend the majority of their lives cooling themselves in pool of water. Unimpressed with us tourists, they just lay in the water, oblivious to our earnest, hopeful infatuation with them. A crocodile emerged from behind a small bush on the banks of the lake and trekked quickly to the water’s edge, and then dove into the lake - narrowly escaping our camera lenses. In almost the same instant, as we were distracted with the croc, a massive hippo mouth emerged from the water’s surface, opening his great, toothy jaws to let our a mighty mid-morning yawn. Our luck was in full-swing now, and we once again boarded the van, the gentle breeze of the whizzing vehicle billowing through our hair, hot sun against our grins, excited about what may lie just around the winding brush bend. We approached a gathering of safari cars, all stopped along the sides of the road in a pack. They were looking at something, but what, we could not distinguish from our distance. The guide slowed down and nestled in a spot next to fellow gawkers, and there she saw, lying under the shade of a feathery-leaved trees, being admired in all her glory - a sleek, long, lioness. She was no more than 20 meters away from our van, but she was docile, which made us overwhelming excited and underwhelming nervous considering our proximity and her ability to tear us to bits with her razor-sharp teeth. As so as we had our filled of the Queen of the Jungle, we continued down the road to find yet another safari treasure - a troop of baboons! We regarded them with delight as the shook their big, bare, blue butts in our faces, shrieked with glee as they through pebbles and bits of grass at our van, and gazed on in awe as swung from trees with easy, listless energy, and unyielding grace. We were thrilled! As we headed in for our afternoon break to lounge poolside again, we couldn’t help but compliment the wisdom and acute accuracy of our tour guide, our tremendous luck, our elation and self-pride on being such observant safari-trekkers. On our twilight decent into the bush, we were satiated enough by our earlier finding to just enjoy the magical savannah sunset from our rooftop perches, blasting iPod tracks from portable speakers of the Lion King soundtrack and “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” into the African ambiance surrounding us.

I Can’t Take This Lion Down

On our last afternoon noon in the park, we were quite gleeful. Our morning was filled with elephants, more baboons, beautiful chirping birds, and a marvelous, glowing sunrise. We were contented with what we’d seen, happy to spend the day just admiring our picturesque views from the top. As we traversed along a path we’d been on several times, we came around a sharp bend slowly and we heard it. A deep, mean, agitated roar. We scan the tall brush nervously. The sound came from too close and with too much fury for us feel excited or safe - we were scared and anxious. The van stopped and waited, all of us holding our breath in worry and fear. Another roar sent tingles down my spine, and I suddenly ached for the protection of shelter inside the van. We couldn’t move. We had no idea where this male lion could be. Then, at first just a shadow, striding from behind the tall grass, in one great step the entire hard body of a fully-grown male lion stretched across the dusty brown path in front of us. He was long, strong - the sinews of the muscles in his legs and chest striking fear into our hearts with each leg-length. He was beautiful, regal, majestic. It is easy to see in that instant why the lion is indeed the King of the Jungle. As he crossed the road, his form melted into another path of wide, tall grass, and again, we were anxious with fear. What you can see can make you scream, but it’s the lurking fear that you can’t see that makes you cower. He let out another roar. He again began frantically tapping on the roof of the car, begging the guide to get out of the impending death-trap brush, but he was blocked. A small, white Jeep, which I barely noticed until now, had parked itself in the middle of the road. It has obviously been there for quite sometime. From the roof, I could see some overly eager Europeans inside the fully-enclosed vehicle snapping pictures. They’d been taunting this lion for quite sometime, and now he was pissed. The lion emerged from the tall brush again, and this time, he crossed the street at an angle, heading towards our van. The two guys in front of me on top of the van instantly lost any of the cool they had try to muster, and climbed backward into my lap. The lion moved in again into the tall brush, continuing to a shaded spot under the tree and viciously roared again. That’s when we saw what all the fuss what about. Under the tree, an obviously pregnant lioness lay lazy. The king was protecting his queen and wanted us out of his domain. We began screaming at the parked white Jeep in front of us, urging them to move to the side, so we could get through. Completely entranced from inside their vehicle, they played no mind to us. Guide started the engine and attempted to move around the Jeep, forced to move through tall, dense grass to get around them. We got stuck. The lion, offended by the roar our van’s old, decaying engine, retaliated with and even mightier roar and began approaching us. In a sequence of events that followed each other so rapidly, I am not even sure I can recall it properly, the lion began marching toward us, our engine roared again, and our driver pushed through the tall grass, mere meters before the lion reached the front of our vehicle. For what felt like an eternity, as the lion stood, wild with wrath in front of us, I got a glimpse of his deep, untamed brown eyes. He was the most charismatic killer you could imagine. We all held our breaths van tore the ground underneath us and sped away. We ripped down the dirt path a kilometer, well out of the raging lion’s rage, before the driver slowed and asked us if we were OK. Unsettled and pale-faced, we nodded in agreement, the rush of tension barely cooling in our veins. Every once and a while, it’s great - and terrifying - to be reminded exactly where you link up on the food chain.

Chasing Waterfalls

After our lion chase, we all were thrilled to get out of the park. Too much excited for one afternoon. Just a thirty minute drive outside the park’s limits lay the last stop in our safari adventure. In the tiny, ridgeside village of Tanagou flows a snaking river the runs down the side of the cliffs to a beautiful waterfalls. The most breathtaking of the falls is five stories tall and cascades into a aquamarine lagoon, decorated by Mother Nature with pink and purple flowers and lush vegetation as far as the eye can see. However, the most thrilling things about this romantic setting is not the sculpted rock formations or the crystal-blue, precious water . . . It’s the fact that you can climb the sucker and then jump five stories down into the chilly water from just a ledge perched just above the cascade. To me, there wasn’t even a question; if I was here; I was going to do it. Three of my fellow Volunteers in the party held the same mentality. (What do you expect? The Peace Corps attracts thrill-seekers.)Under the instruction of a Sherpa-like guide, I walked my bumbling, klutzy feet to the water’s edge, dove into the clean, cold water of the lagoon, and swam across to the bottom of the rock face that would behind my ascent. First, you have to climb the branches of a tree jutting out from the side of the cliff to get to the first ledge point, I pulled myself up with my upper body, wrapped my legs around the branches, and swung up. So far, so good. Carefully placing my feet, I climbed the next two ledges, grasping tightly at the wet rocks, feeling the soft spray from the falling water on my face and shoulders. Then, I slipped. I caught myself immediately, but the slight shuffle of my feet shattered my confidence. I began breathing rapidly, now nervous, suddenly and rationally completely aware that I could very well not survive this. This was not a video game simulation. Game over, lights out - I’d been done. Now stunned, I moved slowly and cautious. The fervor of exploration and excitement had succumbed to fear. I’ve climbed almost halfway up now. I saw a ledge about four meters above me that would be a good enough place to jump from. If I could just make it there, I’d do it. This was much more terrifying the lion. The lion I had no control over; climbing the waterfall, the only person I had to depend on was me. Now, with the end in sight, and so much at stake, I climbed with shaking hands and unsteady feet. I breathed in and pulled myself up onto my destination ledge. I looked up at the top of the falls - it was so close, and I’d come so far. But here, right now, I knew I’d survive to tell the tale. And for maybe the first time in my adult life, I admitted defeat. I faced my own mortality. I chose the road more commonly traveled. Then, for the first time since I began climbing, I looked down over the ledge. It was incredibly high. I looked out to the banks of the lagoon where the others stayed to watch us climb. They were happy and waving. Yes, I hadn’t made it to the top, but I still achieved something. Look at where I was! Look at what I did! With my poor, sad, out-of-shape body - I made it here! With a cheek-to-cheek grin, I step of the ledge, my body straight as a pencil, and I jumped off the Tanagou waterfall. Once I crashed into the chilly water, I push up to the surface, my butt split in two by the deepest wedgie I’ve ever had in my life. I came up giggling and grinning. My fellow volunteers applaud my effort. To my surprise, the others followed my lead and jumped off the same ledge I did. Maybe they too felt scared. Maybe they too were afraid to admit defeat. Maybe they too valued their lives, their time here, their youthful bodies too much. Sometimes, it's best to stop chasing waterfalls; I must stick to the rivers and the lakes that I’m used to.

Greetings again from Africa. I know, I’ve been sluggish about updating, but please forgive. Here is my November ode to Africa.

Lockdown

For all Peace Corps Volunteers, it is a general requirement that you spend your first three months of service at your post. New volunteers are not allowed to leave for any reason other than administrative business, grave health issues, and banking. (There are not bank in many small towns and villages here. You need to go to a larger city in most cases get money in mass). The idea is that we are supposed to stay in our place and get a true sense of where we are living – get to know the people, the local customs and culture, the way of life in your new setting.

Lockdown is actually been a blessing. I’ve had the opportunity to make great friends in village, learn the secret passage ways, hidden nooks and crannies of the terrain, and spend time being a good teacher and community member for my students. However, my health and training schedule has afforded me many opportunities to break free. Here is my story – inside and outside my Kalale cage.

The Eye of the Beholder

Beautiful is in the eye of the beholder. Although I’ve given descriptions of Kalale before, I haven’t had the chance to really paint the picture of my Beninese commune head. It is aptly suited to me, and I do consider it home already. Let me get out my brush and canvas and see what kind of images I can conjure for you.

The “New Jersey” of Benin

Kalale is trashy. It has its share of toothless yokels, for sure, but I am talking about more of a general waste management problem. The dirt roads are caked with trash – paper wrapping, black plastic bags, tin cans, bits and pieces of broken plastic. Villagers just jettison anything that is not worthy keeping, and what is not picked up by children or other citizens that can find a use for it, just sits where it is thrown until is rots away into oblivion (which I believe is centuries for plastic products). Coupled its status as a growing trash heap, Kalale also has immense problems with drainage. On its developmental path to progress, Kalale missed the boat when it came to designing a system that allows waste water (the dirty stuff) to not congeal with rain water (the stuff that eventually becomes what I shower in). The problem is most easily recognizable in the center of town, where the gutter canals overflow will an electric green sludge that I can only imagine to be Kryptonite itself, liquefy and potent enough to kill.

Walk This Way

If you can look behind the grit and grim of Kalale, it is impossible not to notice that is a magical and beautiful. The commune is cradled between two rolling mountains covered in a mix of palm trees and craggy greener that snakes up the sides of the hills. My morning walk to school through town as the early sun breaks through the horizon is one the most breath-taking experiences I get to endure here –and it’s every day. My red dirt roads glow as the light hits it and the roadsides are decorated with tall, old trees that look as old as the Earth and sweet like palm shoots pop out from behind store fronts and tiny houses. At night, as the sun sets, the sky turns every single color the rainbow has to offer, and the sun – the sun – just glows. It may be my mind playing tricks on me, but I swear the sun is actually bigger here. Maybe it has something to do with my closer proximity to the equator; maybe that is just me being romantic; either way, it is enormous and rolling, and doesn’t so much shimmer or sparkle as it does radiate, project, and intensify everything it touches. West Africa is beautiful. I don’t know that a picture can capture it or if I even tried to type a thousand words worth of description that I’d even be able to illustrate a corner of the panorama.

Starry Night

I woke up at 2:00 AM one fine African morning to that internal sloshy feeling that can only signify one thing – diarrhea. I had going to the bathroom in the middle of the night. It means there is no electricity, I have to search for my flashlight in the dark, and then go outside and around the corner to Latrine Alley, just to meet the late-night party of lizards and cockroaches festooning around my cement hole. Lovely. On this particular night, still in a groggy daze of slumber, I marched my fanny out to the latrine to take care of business. On the way back, I looked up at the sky. I hadn’t noticed it before, but it was beautiful, absolutely gorgeous. The black sky was gigantic and lit with was seemed to be a million different stars in a thousand different shapes and sizes, all glimmering with an intensity I believe they reserve for midnight gazers, the few and infrequent who stay up to see them shine. I stood in awe for what seemed like forever, just counting and watching and taking in everything I could and then – the moment I was hoping for. Before I left, my Dad told me told me to take special note of the night sky. There would be magical things in the sky – like shooting stars. And lo and behold – his promises came to fruition. One right after the next four brilliant shooting stars launched themselves across the sky as if they were trying with great effort to slam themselves into the moon. I feel in love with the African sky that night, and now I await my sloshy morning feelings with a sense of hope, awe, and expectation.

The (Mis)Education of Madame Loren Lee

Like a Virgin

It’s true; I may be the one standing in front of my English classroom, but it is not lost on me, even for one moment, that we are all students in that room. My first year of teaching brings with it its own particular sense of adventure. As I teach them English, my students teach me new French vocabulary, what works and what does not as an effective lesson plan, and more than anything – how to be a teacher. Learning is never one dimensional; it comes at the students as they listen, when they speak, as they copy, and when they go out and attempt to practice their newly acquired language skills. I have developed a reputation for incorporating a lot of singing and dancing in my lessons, because I find that learning words to a rhythm and a beat keeps the sounds, the flow, and pronunciation cemented in the brains of my students. At my first APE meeting (the Benin version of the PTA), a parent came up to me and said, “You are my son’s favorite teacher this year. He loves his English class. He comes home and loves to sing his English songs with this brothers and sisters.” He then proceeded to serenade me with his rendition of “Skinamirinky Dinky Dink” – complete with the accompanying hand motions. I’d be lying if I said that I can’t believe that the American government is actually paying me to be this happy and have this much fun doing something I genuinely enjoy. Viva l’anglais!

Doing It the Write Way

As you know, I am a writer. It would only make sense then, that as an English teacher here in Benin, I would force my love of writing upon my unsuspecting student. I decided to take part of the World Wise program that the Peace Corps offers to serving volunteers that connect them with a classroom in America. In doing so, the volunteer can have a transatlantic, cross-cultural exchange in an educational environment. Immediately upon hearing about it, I signed up and was paired with a sixth grade Social Studies class in Rhode Island who are learning about African history, geography, and culture. After a few emails back and forth, the other teacher and I decided Pen Pal letters between the students would be great practice in English reading and writing for my cinqueme (second year) English class, and a good exercise in cultural exchange for her students. It was a learning experience for all.

Writing is not an element of Beninese education that is heavily emphasized, and in saying that, what I truly mean is that is glanced over with the same attention given to airborne dust particles. So, when my students submitted their first drafts of Pen Pal letters, they were a mess. I was convinced I’d gotten myself into a hole too deep to climb out of, yet Africa never fails to impress. I developed a template for their letters; now, all they had to do was follow the template and write about their favorite things – food, activities, school subjects (a majority brown-nosed and flattered me by scribing “English!”), and colors. Some of the answers were funny – favorite drinks included beer (perfectly legal for twelve year-olds here). Some had favorite activities that included, “jumping, running, and blue.” By the second drafts, however, it was clear that they had a handle on it and were enjoying the process. I sent the letters to America after Halloween, and now we all wait, patiently, for the American class’s responses.

My Girls

Club GLOW (the girls club – Girls Leading Our World) in Kalale is a success! We have about 30 regular members that come to each Wednesday meeting, and we recently just had elections. I have developed a reputation for inspiring lots of dances and songs, and I love the two hours per week that I get to spend hanging out and talking with the girls. We cover a variety of topics – how school is going, what is going on at home, the general affect of mistrusting and being perplexed by boys (which seems to be a universal issue amongst women of all ages). Although it is very flattering, I am having some difficulty coming into my role as a model for young girls. I have never been one follow directions nor do things according to social norms, so I am constantly unsure of what type of image I am projecting for the girls. Internally vacillating between what kind of woman I want them to see me as and what type of woman I want to be is a huge struggle that must mostly be achieve through physical representation and gestures – as my French is not nearly advanced enough to express deeper thoughts and feelings. It will be a challenge for me to find that balance and mold myself to be the best Club GLOW supervisor I can be.

Bright Lights, Big City … and Bandages?

I got eaten alive by mosquitoes during my stage training in Porto-Novo, and I spent the better parts of my days there scratching away at the bites until my legs looked like a watershed, tiny little streams flowing red with blood, winding down my calves. It seemed only natural then to continue to grate my legs like a wedge of parmesan cheese while I was a post. Wrong. There is one huge sanitation road block separating between Porto-Novo and Kalale: running water. Washing the wounds in well water allowed tiny little staphylococcus bacteria to set up shop in both of my gams (for the third time since moving to Africa). There is nothing like falling ill to remind yourself that you are in the Third World. It is manageable to muster through difficulties and the trials of life in Africa when all your corporal parts are working with you. When you are sick, there is nothing more you want in life than the creature comforts of home. This time, the infection was serious to earn me a week of antibiotics and rest in Parakou.

Parakou is the third largest city in Benin, and is the de facto capital of the north. Located just southwest of Kalale, by bush taxi through the dirt roads of the brush, it takes me about four hours to get to Parakou from Kalale. Parakou is my oasis. It is a friendly, fun ville with a can-do attitude and laid back atmosphere. You can find just about anything you’d want or need in Parakou between the Grand Marche and many Yovo markets in town. There is also Peace Corps workstation located in Parakou where volunteers can go to use the internet, take a shower under running water, and read one of the many books from the well-stocked library while sitting on a hopper with flush capability. For a volunteer like me, basically, Parakou is Mecca, and any excuse I can use to get into the city, I abuse with eager enthusiasm. The Medical Office agreed that the third time was the charm as far as staph infections go, and the only cure for what ailed me was a week of medical surveillance by a doctor at the Parakou Hospital and a week-long stay at the workstation.

Essentially, for a week, I gorged myself with food, took two showers a day, and spent the morning getting the multiple infections on my legs gauzed, bandaged, and slathered in antiseptic ointment by a team of nurses at the hospital. I kept myself busy as much free internet as the workstation’s dial-up connection could handle and the libraries of movies and books. I didn’t realize how much my body needed the break, going straight from stage to working as a teacher as post, and my stint in the Med Unit was a much-needed sanity salvation. After a week, my legs were tattooed with tiny pink scars that heralded the success of the bandages and antibiotics, and my spirit had recharged and was ready to return to life in the village.

A Reason for Giving Thanks

This year, I will be spending my Thanksgiving in Parakou. This week, as luck would have it, I have teacher training for all the Peace Corps English teachers in my stage. Because we will all be in the same place at the same time over the Great American Feasting Holiday, we decided to throw our own Beninese Thanksgiving. The menu is pretty great: Paula Dean’s TurDuckEn (traditionally a chicken stuffed inside a duck stuffed inside a turkey, but we had to improvise on the duck meat are instead using a Guinea fowl), sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, and both apple and pumpkin pie. This will be the first Thanksgiving I’ve spent outside of America, and it will be the first Thanksgiving I get to actually thank the fowls for their generous sacrifice before I dig into their gingerly grilled and marinated carcasses fork-first.

However, the turkey is not the only thing I have to be thankful for this holiday season. In honor of the festivities, I’d like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has supported me on my journey to the Peace Corps. Thank you all for taking the time to read the blog, send me letters and emails, and for all the positive support and encouragement I’ve had before and since arriving in Benin. Bearing the burdens of Africa would be infinitely more difficult without the strong, loving backbone of my friends and family. I’d like to thank my parents, my grandparents, my sister, Ro Osborn, and my Aunts Arlene and Uncle Ray, and the Holub clan for the amazing packages they have sent for any packages that are still making the transatlantic voyage. Any little reminder of America, any little creature comfort from home is a huge help and an amazing gift. I appreciate everything more than you know, and I am incredibly grateful. I’d like to give a shout-out also to my parents, my Aunt Arlene, and Michelle Knoll for my weekly phone call sessions. Thank you for allowing me to partake in one of my favorite American pastimes (gabbing on the phone); thank you for listening to me drone on endlessly about Africa; thank you for letting me hear your voice, your laugh, and letting me listen to your stories and life in America (and an extra special thanks to Michelle for showing all the others how do use Skype to make the calls!).

Please remember all of you – I love you, and I miss you. My heart is merely a mosaic made of all the people I have ever loved. You are all here with me in everything that I do and in all my memories that I recall upon for comfort, solace, and guidance. I am incredibly lucky and fortunate to have every single one of you as a part of my life. Thank you. Merci beaucoup. Mille grazie. May you all enjoy your Thanksgiving holiday with good food, good friends, and healthy families.

And, in the interest of being nostalgic, I WILL be sorely disappointed if someone from home does not email me the score of the Easton-P’burg Turkey Day game! Thanks again.

Be forewarned: what you are about to read may disturb, shock, and horrify you. Rest easy in the comforting knowledge that I am typing this on a computer, powered by electricity, locked away tightly and securely behind towering slabs of cement and many deadbolts and doohickeys, all while guzzling down red wine straight from the bottle (I really see no reason to dirty a perfectly clean glass when it’s just me chugging away). I’m OK - I‘m better than OK. I’m alive and well-nourished. Welcome to Kalale.

Send Me On My Way

It is a 13- hour bush taxi cab ride through brush countryside from Porto-Novo on the coastline of southern Benin to my post, Kalale. It is the eastern-most post in Peace Corps Benin and arguably the closest to Nigeria (although depending on mode of transportation taken, I can be outdone). Having grown up in eastern Pennsylvania, neighboring New Jersey, I have come to accept that it is my lot in life to be inescapably bound to small, northeastern border towns. On Monday, September 28, 2009, I bid adieu to Porto-Novo in search of a tiny town to teach in, nestled in the arid, lush savanna lands of the Borgou region. I arrived at dusk, in the wake of one of the ending rainy season’s final storms, with just enough daylight encroaching on the horizon to hurl all my earthly belongings (and I really don’t have many) through the threshold of the new living quarters that will be my personal dwelling for the next two years. The reality of that moment hit me as hard and cold as the cement walls surrounding me. It was night, I was alone, and I was in Africa - Neebo and I were home.

I woke up the next morning and immediately got busy with my housewifery. This was my first real place - all to myself and on my own - and it was going to shine like the morning sun if I had to be saturated in blood, sweat, and tears to achieve it. As I should; I, in fact, live in the ritziest concession in the entire village, so it is only right that I maintain appearances for the sake of the neighborhood. My immediate voisins are the richest man in Kalale (who flaunts his wealth with such showy items as a three-meter satellite dish and a massive, noisy generator) and the Fulani tribe chieftain. It’s good company to keep. But moving up and moving in has it drawbacks and pit falls. Let me explain.

Howdy, Neighbor!

The Village People

Life in the village will be a trial of fortitude. There are no paved roads in, around, coming to, or going out of Kalale. It’s strictly terra rouge paths snaking throughout the village. Women walk around town from dawn ‘til dusk carting wares to vend on their heads in giant plastic or wooden tubs with the poise and grace of classically trained ballerinas. I watched a local woman bend over, pick up a kicking, screaming little rug rat, beat the pulp out of him, and then thrown him descending to the ground in a pile of red dust without pouring a drop of the ten gallons of water she was negotiating atop her crown. It is just stand back in awe, because I can find ways to trip over my own two feet on flat surfaces. The Fulani tribe is one the most respected and historical of all the tribes in West Africa, and arguable the most notable in all of Benin. Kalale happens to be the Times Square of Fulani culture, and I am lucky to get to walk among these beautifully decorated, time-honored people. You can tell a Fulani the second you look at him or her; they are ostentatiously dressed in vibrant silk tunics with intricately beaded, gleaming jewelry handing from every body part exposed to sunlight, with their obsidian complexions adorned with bright tribal face paint. I always feel plain and underdressed on my walk into town when I greet a Fulani; the sad thing is - from the way they look at me - I can tell they are thinking the same thing. Many people live in mud huts with thatched roofs. Everyone here is undyingly friendly and welcoming.

If a kind word goes a long way in America, in Africa you could encircle the globe with a sincere handshake and a warm grin. Everyone is so excited to meet, entertain, and shove food into the pie hole of the new Yovo in town. The little children in town are at extremes in terms of their welcoming dispositions. Some children sit in from my house for hours, their little noses pressed up against my screen door, tediously watching me do the most boring things in the world: fed my cat, make lesson plans, or arrange my bookshelf in alphabetical order by author. Nevertheless, they sit there salivating, transfixed by my every movement, lying in wait to see what the New White Girl In Town will do next, as if I am acting out the plot to a Jean Claud Van Dam flick. The only resistance I receive is from some small children who are scared stiff of me. They catch one look at my pale skin, light brown eyes, and gently waving honey hair and run in the opposite direction screaming blooding murder like they’ve seen a ghost. It doesn’t matter how much American candy I throw in their direction as peace offerings or how many times I try to gently pat the tops of their heads; I am obvious and foreign and need to keep my witchy ways to myself.

Along with all the furniture and a wide array of cutlery, Sandy, the volunteer that I am replacing, let a laundry list of social contacts for me in village, which has made integration in-village rather easy-breezy and pleasant. My first weekend at my new crib coincided with my 23rd birthday, and I already had a soiree well-in-preparation awaiting me before I even stepped foot in Kalale. Some of my new, closest companions in Kalale. There is the kind family next door which consists of Tomas (the guy with the gluttonous satellite dish), his toddler son Felix, and his wife, who is known around town as Mama Felix. Mama Felix runs a small boutique in our concession where I can get most of my basic needs from toilet paper and batteries to macaroni. Adissa is one of the many town merchants who gets most of her sales on Market Day (Thursdays), which leaves her free most other days to gossip relentlessly about the comings and goings of everyone else in town. Souleman is another good friend. He owns a small shop on the main road that leads to my house. Souleman is a devout Muslim and is impeccably consistent with his daily prayers. One day, while chatting him up under the shade of a giant papaya tree next to his shop, he invited me to pray with him. Never one to turn her nose up at any opportunity to explore a new religious ritual, I threw on a borrowed hijab from one of the neighbors, washed up, and got down on all fours to praise Allah. It was a uniquely calming experience. So now, when our paths cross and the call to prayer beckons, I kneel with Souleman.

He gets a big kick out of it, and I get a little closer to G-d.

My Menagerie

The Tokens famously sung about the sleeping patterns of ferocious felines with their classic one-hit-wonder, “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.” But what they neglected to include in their little ditty was the myriad of other exotic (and decidedly commonplace) animals that roam the jungle (and my concession) in search of a warm and loving place to rest their heads. Animals walk around Kalale just as freely as anything on two legs. On my daily kilometer walk to and from school, I see warthogs, rams, cows, chickens, pigs, monkeys, and penguins (Ha! No penguins - just wanted to see if you were paying attention). However, the most prolific animal frolicking the cities and villages of Benin are the goats. My concession is home to no fewer than fifteen goats and many of the are impregnated with more little goats. The goats are small in stature - no more than 36 inches in height), but what they lack in grandiosity, they make up in gumption. They are noisy little creatures, hemming and hawing all hours of the day in night, sometimes screaming as if they are in abject torture. They scare the bejesus out of Neebo on a regular basis by putting their snouts against the screen door and beckoning him to come outside and play. Once, during my post visit to Kalale, I thoughtless left my metal screen door ajar. While I was in the back master bedroom, a neighborhood goat just waltzed into my living room - without knocking, mind you - to check up on me. In spite the breaking-and-entry, most goats won’t let you within two feet of them without scurrying off the opposite direction. Yet, they are considerate. If both a goat and you want to walk down the same narrow alleyway between two mud huts and you both recognize there’s only room for one of you, the goat will politely bow out and give you the right-of-way, graciously awaiting its turn. It’s a phenomenon that I can’t quite get my head around, because I know a ton of New Yorkers that simply cannot grasp that kind of courtesy.

Maybe It’s the Third World or May It’s Just My First Time Around

Make no bones about it, I live in an African village. Even if your only knowledge of African villages is gleaned from The Lion King and late-night infomercials that desperately beg you to donate the change you find underneath your couch cushions to starving children in Africa, you can surmise the basic look and feel of Kalale. In fact, when I arrived hailing from the big city of Porto- Novo, one of the assistants to the mayor, and acculturated man, promptly greeted me with, “Bienvenue a la brosse,” which basically means “Welcome to the brush.” In all honesty, I did not arrive in Kalale sight-unseen. I came in mid-August on post visit, which was basically a humble, whirlwind tour given to me by the Censeur (vice principal) of my school. I met all the Whose Who of the village and school administration, but my French was still pretty weak, and I gathered just enough to smile and nod my way through salutary introductions. I knew what I was getting into, but only in the way a pregnant mother grasps the difficulties of raising a child. And as the famous African proverb decries: It takes a village to raise a child.

The Bare Necessities

“Forget about your worries and your strife; all you need are the bare necessities,” or at least that is what I gathered from The Jungle Book. As aforementioned, my palace consists of seven huge rooms that include an indoor and outdoor kitchen (complete with fire pit!), an open-air showering room, a courtyard, a master bedroom, and living room. It came fully-furnished and done so with excellent taste (the volunteer that I replaced was a grande dame of sorts and would tolerate nothing less). Notice that I did not mention a bathroom. I should probably take this opportunity to mention I have no running water and my electricity exists from 7:00 PM to midnight, if I’m lucky. Thomas Edison forgot Kalale on his way to making the whole world alight, therefore AC/DC electric output is hit or miss here. Not that I am not positively thrilled to have what little I have. Given the choice, I would have forgone the awe-inspiring sounds of the drip-drip of a faucet or the whirling glory that is a flushing toilet in place of power. According to Genesis, the first thing G-d said was, “Let there be light,” and he did so for good reason. Being able to type on my netbook, listen to music freshly charged from my iPod, and regenerate the ever-dying battery of my deadbeat mobile phone are small, daily miracles I would never dream of taking for granted. They are little touches of home - the First World - that make everything seem conquerable.

But the lack of running water has some serious drawbacks. Water for washing comes from a well, which basically collects undrinkable ground water and rain water. The drinkable water - pump water - must be boiled and then filtered before it can pass through my lips in order to avoid such maladies as amoebic dysentery and giardia. Because I lack power, I also have a butane-driven cook top stove, which has leant itself to some interesting culinary mishaps. I grew up with one of the flat top, ultra-modern cooking ranges and mostly ignored the numbers on the heat adjustment dial, because, well…if the water is boiling and thing seems to be heating up just fine, what else do I really need to know? Wrong, wrong, terribly wrong. Those numbers have hidden meaning - heat level! Maybe now is an apt time to mention at I live in a desert climate. The average temperature here this time of year is a toasty 110ºF which leaves you inhumanely bake in the African sun. There is no “swell” in swelter in Kalale. So, once you light the match to the butane range, things literally go up in flames. There is a dial that controls how much gas gets thrust through the tiny pipe connecting the range to the tank, but it’s looks very MacGyvered. Cement retains heat so anytime I cook, boil water to drink, or heat up leftovers, I wind up soaking wet in my own perspiration brought on by the combined forces of arid heat and burning flames. Even some chores that are somewhat outdated and bothersome in The States become routine afternoon projects here. There are two byproducts of cooking: sustenance and dirty dishes. Washing dishes without a Maytag consists of taking two large plastic basins, filling them with pump water, and then putting powder detergent in one (the wash cycle) and a cap full of bleach in the other (the rinse cycle). Each plate, fork, ladle, mug, and glass that is used must go through this water treatment system in order to be used again in the not-so-distant future. Everything I consume has the faint aftertaste of Clorox. I guess here in Africa it’s going to be white on the outside, white on the inside. And then there is the latrine…

Queen Jean: The Latrine Queen

My most difficult transition by far in this move from Beninese metropolis to Beninese shanty town has been getting used to life without The Porcelain Throne. Admittedly, in the United States I was definitely one of those people that cherished her time with John. It is where I went to relax, catch up on my reading, to dream up my next road trip or neuroses, to get away from the Public-at-Large, and just be one with my bowel movements. Well, boy oh boy, have I kissed those leisurely moments of bathroom bliss good-bye! In order to relieve myself, I must walk around the confines of my concession to a row of outhouses lined up next to each other, jutting from the ground like headstones in a graveyard. Thankfully, I have my own private latrine so I do not have to share my end-roads with the other inhabitants of my concession. Well, my pit-o-despair is as sparse as can be expected. It is a 4”x4”cement space with a tin roof and a tin swinging-hinge door that houses a concrete, dirt-level slab with a hole in the middle that is coincidentally shaped exactly like Benin. A wooden plank with a handle covers the hole in an effort to keep other unbordered tenants (roaches, spiders, lizards, snakes) from sneaking up and biting me in the tukus as a crouch in submission. Everyday, I leave my dignity at the door as I unlock my latrine and prepare myself mentality to get down to the Dirty Work. As my dearest neighbor Ro Osborn can attest, in my former American life, I used to have a problem with clogging up toilet bowls. Well, Ro Ro, Benin has out-maneuvered my shortcomings in that arena! It sure is the pits.

Where There Is One, There Are More

My former business partner, Mike Aslett, once said, “Where there is one, there are more. If you have four, you have an army.” In it’s original context, the quote was meant as an entrepreneurial, small business rally cry against the greed of Corporate America. When you apply the same quote to household insects, it has a totally frightening connotation. It’s an African village, so it’s practically a given that the place is swarming with creepy crawlers and other critters that go bump in the night; no surprises there. What is surprising - at least to me - is how many of them are there! I feel my little bungalow could send the Orkin Man into cardiac arrest. The army I face is banded by spiders of every shape and size: daddy-long-leggers that could put supermodels to shame in a Longest Legs competition, microscopic ones that you can confuse for dust or your own dander, and tarantulas (which are unbelievably fast little buggers). There are beetles, moths, mosquitoes, and - last but not least - cockroaches. The cockroaches are the most nerve-wracking. I realize they are relatively harmless and really can’t do too much but be persistently annoying, but they are an international sign of filth and disgust, which, in and of itself, is appalling. I actually had the gall to brag to other volunteers when they called that luckily, my house had been spared the presence of such disturbing little bastards. That was until one fateful evening I entered my outdoor shower to find a cafard the size of my index finger grinning up at me as if to say, “Need help lathering your back?”

But with personal challenges also come personal victories. I won big time at the beginning of the week in my fight against wasps. It is no secret that I am deathly afraid of anything the has a stinger and buzzes. I overreact to them so dramatically out of fear that I’ve taken to telling people that I am allergic to their sting in the hope that they will not find my cowardice so pathetic. Ergo, when a particularly pesky little wasp would stop at nothing - screen door, nor sealed window - to invade my territory, the fight was on. I encountered the interloper after I emerged from my kitchen, dripping sweat over the open flames of my stove, and immediately heard his distinctive wasp wings flapping too close for comfort. I saw him hover just below the doorframe. Reflexively, I slammed to kitchen door shut and began hyperventilating in fear. Quickly, I realized there was no where to run, no one to run to, and that I was the one running in my own house. So, I grabbed a can of insecticide that was stashed along with the household cleaning supplies, opened the door, crouched like a tigress lying in wait, and zapped that little mother-trucker right in the ass. I watched him fall to the ground in mid-air and then writhe and twitter in his last worldly moments. I am supposedly here in Africa as an operative of peace, but that particular act of violence was cathartically gratifying.

The (Ex)terminator

My greatest ally in my Campaign Against Critters is Neebo. The acquisition of this kitten has been the single best decision I have made since joining the Corps de la Paix. He is sweet, kind, playful, and adorable. He is always happy to see me when I get home, purrs peacefully in my lap while I mercilessly devour pages of books, and curls up beside my pillow as I drift in La La Land each night. Thanks in no small part to Marcheline, the daughter of my neighbor who has also found a soft spot in her heart for him, he is growing up bilingual in French and English. Yet, all that makes him is good company, not an asset to the team. What gives Neebo his MVP status is fervor for the hunt. The little guy just won’t quit when it comes to ending the lives of things creep, crawl, and cricket. I know he does it for his own amusement out of his boundless, curious kitten energy, but he is so accurate and effective that it is worthy of the utmost praise. In his most heroic feat to date, I saw my pint-size kitty tackle a gecko off my cement wall, paw it in his claws like he was flipping a pancake, go for its jugular like vampire, rip it to shreds, and swallow it in chunks. I can’t stop beaming with maternal pride. Rock on, little man. Viva le Neebo! Keep doing what you’re doing ‘cause you do it so well.

Armed and Ready For the First Day of School

October 1st marked the le reentre for Beninese students country-wide. Unlike in America, every school in Benin starts on the same day and most follow the same pattern for their first few weeks. The first days of school at CEG Kalale (which stands for Centre d’Enseignment Generale, or secondary school) were essentially marked with hours of enforced mandatory labor for all students. The students (les eleves) are responsible for maintaining the school ground, so the first days are spend weeding out the summer overgrowth in the fields and gardens surround the CEG. My main job was to sit in a lawn chair next to the Directeur (head master) and read David Sedaris, occasionally looking up to greet other teachers and administrators.

I am the only female teacher at CEG Kalale. I have been warned by other volunteers that being “one of the guys” is a type of survival skill I will have to hone and master `over the next two years in order to avoid being treated like doormat. In the spirit of togetherness, when the male administrators called me into the Directeur’s office at 8:00 AM to take shots of sodabi - the favored Breakfast of Champions among faculty. I womaned-up and down three shots in the span of an hour. Luckily, heaven protects fools and drunks, so I made it home by 10:00 AM in one piece before the midday sun could begin blaring down on me. Hopefully, that little stint earns me enough credibility to last me the rest of school year.

I officially started teaching classes the following week. My schedule is as follows: two-hour classes, two times per day, four days of the week. I teach two levels of English - sixieme (novice) and cinqueme (intermediate low). I dutifully prepared my lessons, handouts, visual aids, and homework assignments the night before my classes. What I did not prepare for was the students themselves. The boys came to school armed with machetes. I was educated in a post-Columbine/9-11 public school system with a very strict Zero Tolerance policy. I had grown accustomed to stories on the nightly news broadcast of students being expelled from their schools for bringing butter knives in their lunch kettles. So, imagine my shock and terror when 24 Beninese boys came trotting into class wielding rusty machetes as if they were pocket pencil sharpeners. I nearly fainted on my first day of school out of pure terror. I walked on eggshells throughout my entire first class, not wanting to be too intimidating or disciplinary. After class, I immediately ran to the Censeur’s office and told him about the machetes. I took all the willpower in his body to hold back the laughter that I could see rolling onto his face and out through his eyes. Here in Benin, children don’t come to school to hack each other to death. Education is not free, is not an equal opportunity employer, and is not to be taken lightly. Apparently, students come here to learn, not to sit in the corner and daydream of ways to annihilate their teachers. The machetes are used for grounds maintenance that all male students must perform as a part of their service to their community and school. My suggestion of student-spawned violence towards another student or myself was absolutely unfathomable to the Censeur, who, dumbfounded, had to beg the question, “Do students really try to kill people with pocket knives at their schools in America?” Yes, yes, Mr. Censeur, they most certainly do. Now who seems ridiculous?

Dear Everyone: Please forgive me for not writing; it has been months since my last entry. Needless to say, my life is a roller coaster, pulsating from day-to-day, moment-to-moment, with such grapping holes in reason and rationality that I almost feel as if I am emotionally canyon-jumping. It’s been a wild ride, and I will use this time and space to fill you in on as many details as possible. Enjoy the ride.

The Proper Care and Feeding of Your Yovo: A Host Family’s Guide to Maintaining the Life of an American

On July 27th, I arrived in Porto Novo, the capital of Benin. It is the site for our first two months of training, called le stage, before we are sworn in as official Peace Corps Volunteers at the end of September. Three days before my arrival, our trainers handed each of us volunteers a picture of our Beninoise host families. As my fellow stagiaires and I passed around our pictures, gawking and analyzing them like they were baseball trading cards, many could not help but comment as I shared mine: “Wow, you get to live with Naomi Campbell, Tyra Banks, and Iman.” C’est vrai. Inarguably, my host family is beyond gorgeous, each girl more pretty than the next. I have come to live with the Akande family and nothing in my life has been the same (or boring!) since I walked through the threshold.

Where to start? I guess I’ll just start naming names. I have a Mama and a Papa. They are charming folks, quick to laugh and hug - especially Mama, who is a big fan of bear hugs, a trait I usually admire with exception to the mornings when she comes at me open-armed and bare-breasted. Papa is unusually tall for a Beninois man (people here are slightly shorter than average from a lifetime of unbalanced eating and malnutrition), easily towering over me at a lean 6’2”. He is a former Nigerian insurance salesman who moved to Benin to fulfill his calling as an Evangelical minister. We have some pretty interesting conversations about religious beliefs and G-d part in assisting husbands in the sexual gratification of their wives. He considers himself a an “African Hebrew” as his father was a non-practicing Ethiopian Jew. He is undyingly supportive and intrigued by my Judaism (who would have thought?!). Mama is seamstress who works in Lagos, Nigeria, which is a 3-hour commute from our home in Porto Novo (and that is 3 hours ONE WAY). Thanks to her amazing handiwork, I have some of the most admired tissue dresses (tissue is what they call the extremely durable, breathable cotton fabric here used to make clothing) among all the female stagiaires. I live in a very progressive, dare I say Western, host family. Mama is the breadwinner of the tribe, and Papa spends the majority of his days at our house waxing philosophic and making sure that I am well-fed, well-dressed, well-entertained - all in a timely fashion.

I have three host sisters and two host brothers. My sisters are Dihana, Johannes, and Josette (but everyone calls her Teni). They are all long, lean, tall, and breathtakingly beautiful. When I first arrived, they all scampered to unpack my bags, dying to see en vogue American fashion. It was like ripping presents out of the paws of tiny children on Christmas morning to see the grave disappointment on their faces when they open my bags to discover nothing hip, hot, or high-heeled. Johannes has a 8 month-old baby boy, my baby brother Merveil. From the moment I laid eyes on the tiny tot, it was if the entire core of my being made a complete shift and rotated to concentrate single-mindedly on him. He is the sweetest, happiest, most adorable child I have ever seen in my entire life and is a sheer joy to be around. He is generally content, making him incredibly easy to live with. Shockingly, there are a myriad of cheerful benefits to living with a baby - the constant cuteness, the loving cooing sounds, and the most jubilant giggle that was ever uttered from a human mouth. Last, but hardly least, is my favorite family member: my little brother, Joseph (who also affectionately goes by Bo Bo, which means only son in Yoruba). Oh, the infinite joys and guffaws brought on by little brothers. He is the most fun to play with (we spend many moon-drenched nights on the front porch of the house pretending to kick, torment, and annihilate each other). My brother’s hobbies and further definite the extreme absurdity of African life. We play football (“soccer” does not exist outside of the U.S.A.) with a deflated, dilapidated ball that honestly looks like it has been through a war. But when it rains, we go inside and play original Nintendo Mario Brothers. He greets me everyday with the warmest “Bon Arrive” that I hear all day. Heaven help me if I come home with something in desperate need of a good tinkering. In a way that often reminds me of father, as soon as I something as mundane and commonplace as, “Bo Bo, you think you could take a look at this?“ the object is snatched from my grasp and returned only when the problem has been tidily fixed. Nonetheless, Joseph is a 13 year-old boy, so the ridiculous stunts he pulls in an effort to amuse the live-in white girl are ridiculous. The latest and most notable was his recent adventures in arson. I should have know when he asked, “Shalla (my Yoruba name, meaning the light-shiner) can I have your matches?” that whatever he was contriving would not end well. My darling, African little brother proceeded to gargle a swing of kerosene, light the match, and blow fire. He effectively singed his upper and lower lips and spent a good deal of time afterward spurning the voodoo gri gri demons for his suffering. I will get to the voodoo…give me a second.

The Voodoo That You Do

One of the most alluring tourist traps in all of Benin is the voodoo sites peppered through the country. Benin is the historical birthplace of the voudon religion, or what we call in the Americas, “voodoo.” Hollywood and Saturday morning cartoons popularized the voodoo doll, a miniature effigy used to torture the person from whose likeness it is devised. As you can image, that is only one, quirky aspect this much patronized religion. Although few people actually practice voudon as their primary religion (Christianity and Islam are much more prevalent and germane), the culture of voodoo is still apart of almost every Beninese person’s life. The beliefs are taken extremely seriously. I will further explain using examples.

The Gri Gri’s Gonna Get Ya

According to voudon belief, the gri gri is the demon spirit that floats among us, facilitating every negative things that happens in our life. For instance, I got my pick-pocketed less than a kilometer from my house. Who was at fault? The gri gri. I got two separate staph infections within 8 weeks of each other. What did I do wrong? Nothing - it was the gri gri. But the gri gri is not just a god of small things. If you’re a farmer and your crops did not come up this year, it had absolutely no bearing on your seed selection, lack of crop rotation patterns, or tilling cycles. The gri gri just decided to hate on your sorry butt. Although this Hakuna Matata attitude towards life may seem a bit spiritually freeing if not completely irresponsible, it does cause serious development and educational problems. How do you try to help that farmer grow better crops if he honestly believes his poor harvest is of no fault of his own and cannot be remedied using new techniques, but is simply a gri gri issues - something the medicine man can fix? As I previously mentioned, there is no waste management system here in Benin. Anywhere you walk is also a perfectly acceptable place to jettison your junk. So, when I recently got my 5-inch hair cut outside under the shade a nice tree, I didn’t think twice about leaving my dearly departed locks where they fell (they are biodegradable). However, my Beninese training facilitators had other ideas. I was told that I had to pick up every lock of hair on the ground, put in securely in a plastic bag, and take it home for safekeeping. The reason: if I just leave my strands lying there, they can easily be picked up by someone who could conjure the gri gri and curse me. It took no less than an hour to get enough off the ground to satiate my facilitators.

Needling Haystacks

Voodoo, like many world religions, is very patriarchal. Men rule; women get fooled. One of the most interesting examples of this is the Zambetto. The Zambetto is the vodoun high priest that is so holy and sacred that he must be covered from public view at all times. So, in order to do that and keep preaching to the populous, he hides himself in a thatched costume that resembles a walking haystack. Male voodoo practitioners follow around the Zambetto clanging chimes and beating tom tom drums to keep the gri gri away. All is fair game during daylight hours - you can consult the Zambetto for advice, rekindle conversations with dead relatives, take pictures (for a free, of course). However, at twilight, the rules of the game change drastically. Once dark looms over the city, women can do longer set eyes on the Zambetto, even in his haystack form. If you do, his male followers will hunt you down and kill you. It’s that clear-cut and simple.

I always wondered what Peace Corps Washington would tell my family if the Zambetto clan wiped me out. I’d imagine the letter would read something like this: Mr. and Mrs. Chiesi, we regret to inform you that your daughter is no longer a living, breathing member of our global society. Her early termination occurred at approximately 19:00 hours West Africa Meridian Time. Your daughter saw a walking haystack and was promptly butchered into tiny pieces by a group of local Voodoo men. We extend our sincerest sympathies and condolences to your family for your loss.

Exorcise It

Here’s a good gri gri story compliments of my dear friend Mark. Mark has not been the healthiest stagiaire during our months of training. More than once, Mark has taken the “African Gamble” and lost. (The African Gamble is the nickname for the gastro-intestinal complications brought on by the extreme differences in water purity, bacteria, and food quality in Africa. Complications include shitty farts, - sharts, if you will - diarrhea, and excessive gas. It’s considered a gamble because sometimes, when a the need to let one rip comes upon a person, and he or she decides to let one out into the fresh air, he or she ends up with a pair of soiled shorts. That’s the African answer to high stakes.) Back to Mark: After one particularly debilitating bout of tummy trouble, Mark found himself writhing on the cement floor of his host family’s house, gripping his stomach in the throws of botulism, and screaming in pain. Bewildered and unsure of what to do, his Beninese host family circled around him, clamoring in local African tribal language on how to proceed. What they decided on was a voodoo exorcism. So, eight family members put Mark on a moldy mattress in the middle of the living room, blasted tribal chanting music from boom boxes circa 1990, cried out tribal language anti-curses at the top of their lungs, and threw buckets of water over his feverish body. Mark attested that after several hours of vomiting, intense abdominal discomfort, and being covered in a murky combination of sweat and pump water, he was cured.

Theory of Relativity

Einstein had some great theories, but the one that resonates most with me is relativity. Everything is relative. Here in Benin, my sense of clean, normal, and edible have shifted so profoundly that it is only fair that I share that shift with you.

Cleanliness is Next to Godliness

Since I’ve been in Africa, I have honestly lost touch with what something clean smells like. After the first two weeks, all the smells started to blend together, and now there is just one hovering scent that smells vaguely of wet sawdust (not all together the worst scent one could inhale). As I have previously mentioned, there is no concept of waste management here, so you just through your trash where you stand; everyone else does the same thing. To sum it up, Porto-Novo essentially resembles a tropical French colonial locale that is been ravaged by red dust storms, shaken by earthquakes until the roads are cracked and torn, and then monsooned upon for months by a maelstrom of debris and refuse. Sounds like a real tourist attraction, eh? Running water is difficult to come across, even in the capital city of Porto-Novo. So, I depend most on anti-bacterial hand sanitizer to clean my hands. What I settle for his dirt-smudged hands that smell like Pinesol. That to me, is the scent of clean. I write with these hands, greet with these hands, and most disturbingly eat with these hands. The shower that I wash myself in daily is deplorable. In my former American life, I have outright refused to even urinate in I-95 truck stops that look like rooms in the Ritz Carlton compared to my African bathroom. Essentially the bathroom is a dungy cement room in the center of the house with a large cutout window that scenically overlooks . . .the living room. Privacy is a joke. A flimsy piece of cloth covers the window, but much to my surprise, that cloth becomes transparent when you turn on the light in the bathroom. The bathroom also has a sink with a faucet, but no running water. Actually, the sink drain doesn’t even lead to anywhere. The first time I spit down the sink, my spit promptly landed on my big toe two seconds after it left my mouth. There is a showerhead in the bathroom, but it’s just a sadistic tease; it’s been broken since the third day I arrived. The water that comes out of the pump in the wall makes me itch for a half hour after each bucket shower I take. A bucker shower, for those of you who maybe scratching your heads at my terminology, is exactly what it sounds like. You fill a plastic bucket with water and then you a smaller plastic bowl to throw water over your body parts after you’ve lathered up. Many times, I lift the lid of the toilet seat to find a little cockroach chillin’ and grillin’ in the bowl. Again, just for emphasis, everyday, I shower in that room. Cleanliness is relative.

The Norm

Mama Africa is the homeland of humanity. Being the epicenter of human life spurs some very interesting cultural differences. Here are brief descriptions of some typical Beninese comings and goings.

The most common mode of mass transport here is the zemidjan, a Vespa-like device with the kind of agility necessary for navigating the dense traffic. Catching a zem is only half the battle; once you’re on, you must hang on for dear life. Because they are open and relatively unprotected, when it rains, you get rained on. I’ve seen a woman, in a fit of rage, slap her zem driver with the dead chicken she was carrying (fresh from the market, no doubt), without remorse. Benin is a Child Protective Services nightmare. There are no such things as car seats in Benin. Infant children scoot around town lassoed to their mothers’ backs papoose-style, secured by nothing more than deftly wrapped fabric. God bless Africa.

Although it constantly vacillates, Benin is between the ninth and twelfth poorest country on the planet. For all intents and purposes, I am living in the ghetto of the world. Poverty is normal and the discrepancy between the haves and have nots is enormous. However, there is virtually no homelessness here. If you have no where to go and nothing to eat, the overwhelming sense of community and hospitality that is innately a part of Africa culture ensure that you will be fed and taken in. I am endlessly impressed how a country with so little has virtually eliminated a devastating American problem by simply showing compassion.

I had my parents send me an alarm clock in my first care package from The States, but it seems obsolete and utterly unnecessary here in Benin. My housing has ensured that I will be alive, awake, alert by 5:00 AM every morning without fail. My host family keeps a small rooster in the backyard. His main job is to act as the family’s garbage disposal, but he also moonlights as my own personal early-morning hell. The rooster hates me. I know this. There is no other way to explain his behavior. Before the sunrise, prompted by the muffled cries of neighboring roosters, the rooster positions himself directly beneath my bedroom window, leaving merely a brittle pane of glass between my REM-cycle and his boisterous crowing. He lets loose and doesn’t stop for until I finally surrender to his siren calls and get out of bed - groggy and irritable. I packed earplugs and the rooster alone would be tolerable. What I did not anticipate was Ramadan. I live approximately 500 feet away from one of the most beautiful mosques in all of Porto-Novo. It is truly a sight to behold, a marvel of architectural integrity. For the majority of September, the Muslims partook in their yearly observance of the fasting month, also known as Ramadan. According to Islamic Law, good Muslims must pray five times per day. To ensure the prayers occur in a timely fashion, the mosques blast the prayers on loudspeakers for everyone is the vicinity to hear, a practice aptly called the call to prayer. So, every morning, almost in perfect synchronization with the rooster, a large, booming voice chanting in Arabic bursts into my room and floods my ear canal. At the end of Ramadan, the praying became more frequent and more intense. Instead of the same booming, chanting voice morning after morning, new voice appeared on the loudspeaker at all hours of the night. On one of final days on Ramadan, they had what I liked to call Open Mic Night at the Mosque, and it seemed as if every single Muslim in Porto-Novo lined up to take his or her turn praising Allah as loud as they could for as long as they could. Merci a Allah for creating earplugs!

To Eat, Or Not To Eat? That Is The Question . . .

When a culture is disenfranchised by generations of terrible bouts of starvation, you can hardly expect culinary excellent. After all, how can you develop or hone an artistic representation through food when your raw materials are in short supply? In Africa, the general rule is quantity over quality. The best place to take in the Beninese cuisine, however, is by hitting pavement and diving fork-first into street food. Over the past two months, I have definitely extended my palate. In short, here is the good, the bad, and the ugly. Bon appetit!

The Good

It is my belief that every culture enjoys frying things in oil. The type of oil is different, the carbohydrate that often gets dunked headlong to the boiling oil varies from region to region, but the facts are the facts, and everybody loves it. Benin is no exception. One of the best things you can possibly eat from the streets of Benin are bignes. Essentially, the are tiny little dough balls, approximately the size of doughnut holes, that are fried in peanut oil and covered in raw sugar. Bless the Tanti that came up with that creation. What is basically tastes like is a delicious, warm, doughy, straight from the county fair FUNNEL CAKE - in a bit-size ball. At the equivalent of nickel a pop, they are the perfect afternoon snack. Another fried joy is breadfruit chips. You can get them from a little woman a block away from my school, and the filled the void in my gut left by the absence of Pringles. Piment (said pea-mon) is a spicy tomato sauce incorporated into most Africa meals. I love my piment hot and heavy and just plainly drizzled over some jasmine rice. Another of my new diet staples is the avocado sandwich. Picture this: a crispy, fresh French baguette sliced down the center and the lusciously coated with chunky guacamole. Yum Yum Yum! I wash down my food with Beninoise beer (it’s light and airy like a Corona) or grapefruit soda.

The Bad

Never, under any circumstances, allow okra sauce to slip through your lips. It’s not worth the trauma that will triumphantly follow that trip down Taste Bud Lane. Essentially, corn meal is mashed up into a dough-type consistency and served in a warm ball in the center of a plate. It essentially has no taste and serves is only purpose during the meal by being dunked into the okra sauce. Okra sauce is disgusting. Let me tell you why. It has the consistency of snot. The comparison is unavoidable, especially as it slithers down your esophagus. It is gooey and warm and tastes like gym sock that’s been shoved into the dark corners of a locker to rot away. Eating that crap is intolerable cruelty. I also not attempt pate blanche. It is made by fermenting rice cereal for weeks in a plastic bag with vinegar. I don’t even have to tell you about the taste; it’s worse than you can even conjure from the preparation description. The bean mush here is OK. In fact, on some days and being served by the right vender, it’s a tasty treat. But never, under any circumstances, accept bean mush offered to you in a tiny black plastic bag. That means it’s been sitting around all afternoon, baking in the hot Africa sun and allowing flies to fertilize your lunch with larva.

The Ugly

In Africa, I am a vegetarian. In the past two months I have tasted far too many pieces of degenerate meat to really feel comfortable allowing animal flesh into my body. I see the goats and the chickens I’m about to eat. They eat African garbage off the street. Garbage is not enough nourishment to make anything large, juicy, and plump, so the pieces of meat that sit on top of my rice and couscous look like they were stripped from the body of an anorexic Olsen twin. It’s criminal to eat something to absolutely helplessly frail; it is also probably unhealthy. I normally love fish, but when it is served to you with the head, tail, and scales still on, it’s difficult to dive in. But my adventures in appetite are not limited to solid food. My most harrowing triumph thus far has liquor. Sodabi is African moonshine, and it’s made from fermented palm oil. I took shots of it from a human skull. What can I say? I’m sure trying to integrate.

Summer School

My job in the Peace Corps is to teach English to secondary students in an African Village. Over the past months, I’ve had model lessons and taught hundreds of different students how to count, how to get directions, how to tell him, and how to use the present continuous tense. It’s the most interesting, rewarding, fun job in the Peace Corps. I feel really positive about what I will be during. Knowing English in West Africa is a valuable life skill. If you know English, you can get jobs and attend schools in neighboring English-speaking countries like Ghana and Nigeria that have better job markets, pay scales, and universities. Being an English teacher in the Peace Corps is great, because I can see the influence I’m making on a community on a daily basis. I may not start a new business or build a dam, start a saving and loan company, or erect a library. Those are grand slams, way out of the ballpark, far beyond my minor league abilities. But I am the Joe DiMaggio of the Peace Corps. When they tally up the stats, I know my RBIs are high. I love hearing my student excited wave at me at scream, “Madame Loren Lee! Good morning!” in their cute little West African accents. Once, while teaching the body parts, I taught my students the song, “The knee bone’s connected to the thigh bone.” After class, later that afternoon, a saw a group of my students walking to the market, and they rushed me and started chanting the song. It was a great moment. It makes all the hours of lesson planning and classroom preparation so worth it.

Please Raise Your Right Hand and Repeat After Me

On Friday, September 25, 2009 I was officially sworn in as a Peace Corps Volunteer. I passed my French proficiency exam, I taught five weeks of model school, I had more culture classes than I can handle. It was televised on the national cable channel and the United States ambassador read us our pledge in first in English and then in French. It was one of the greatest moments of my life thus far, and I am very proud to serve. Tomorrow, I leave for Kalale, my post. I live in a massive (for Africa) cement box with seven room including an indoor and outdoor kitchen, a courtyard, two bedroom, and an spacious living room. It is completely furnished, because I am replacing a previous volunteer. I am four hours from Parakou (the closest city that is Googlable). It is as east as you can go without smashing into Nigeria. It is a great little village with beautiful tribal clans (the Fulani), a river filled with sacred crocodiles (that you can swim with!), and an annual lion chase. It am ready to leave my host family and Porto-Novo, although I will miss them, and start life in Africa on my own. I am bringing a little companion with my. I recently bought a kitten named Neebo. Kalale or bust!

I miss you all. Thank you for your emails and packages. Please keep in touch. Sorry it took me so long to update my blog.

I arrived safely in Cotonou four days ago. Any fears I had about nervousness or uncertainly were completely unfounded. It was 8 o'clock in the evening and the first smell that hit me we a mix of rust and dust. Baggage retrieval was absolutely chaotic; they do not form "lines" in Benin. People just congregate and herd. As soon as we walked through the doors outside, a group of Peace Corps Volunteers (PVCs) in-country we there waiting for us, cheering us on. Hot, tired, sweaty, and anxious, we all piled into old vans that transported us to a small compound in more suburban Cotonou. The ride was amazing. Brightly colored shacks lined the red dust streets. The one, large main road that runs the length of Benin was packed with small motorized bicycles called zemidjans. Traffic laws are mere suggestions. The dichotomy of lifestyle was apparent even at street level - a Texico gas station that catered to nice automobiles was located directly across the street from a man selling oil in old glass liquor bottles.

The compound were are staying at is nice, but holds no ammenities. Glossamer panes of mosquitos netting guard my very simple bed set - a small plastic mattress, a thin cotton sheet, and a well-worn, flat pillow (I was so glad that I had the foresight to nab the travel pillow off the plane). The bathroom is basic, too. There is just a showerhead and a large tin bucket with a small plastic bowl inside of it. They have not cut the water yet, so I can still take cool, refreshing showers at night without having to use the bucket shower system. I am relishing each shower I take. Last night, I even let the shower flood the room, just because I knew that my times with water raining down on me from a faucet were numbered. Packing an alarm clock was very unnecessary. Very conveniently, there's a rooster that starts up about a half hour before breakfast every morning.

I'm a human pin cushion at this point. I don't even remember all the things I've been vaccinated for now, but I am on weekly malaria meds (which I started the night I arrived in Cotonou), and I know I got a yellow fever shot (the nurse that injected me for that was very funny). I was not sick or irratated at all from the med influx, and I have had no digestive problems to speak of thus far (knock on wood).

The food is surreal. Carbohydrates are my best friend. Breakfast is European-style - tea, a baguette of light, crisp bread and jam. Training Volunteers tell me that the bread is typical; the jam is a treasure. Lunch and dinner are light meals, filled with staple produce such as peas, carrots, tomatoes, beans, and onions. Rice with intresting sauces is served at every meal. I ate goat for what I believe was the first time yesterday and really enjoyed it. Bottled water or "passsatomo" is readily available at our compound. Yesterday, I bought a pineapple off of a woman selling them off of her head (think Chiquita banana lady). She stripped the pineapple expertly with a blade and handed it to me with a tooth pick in a small black plastic bag. It was pure white, sweet, juicy, and absolutely delicious. An entire pineapple cost me 100 francs (twenty cents), which was "expensive" in the city. Currently, it's the waning end of mango season in Benin. Never in my entire life have a I had such a fresh piece of fruit. I bartered for it at the marketplace today. It was beautiful, rose-orange, sweet, and lush. My lips were covered it juice with each bite from the saturation. On a walk around the neighborhood near our compound this past Sunday, we got a delightfully little treat from a street vendor. It's popular all over West Africa; it's called FanChoco. It's a frozen treat served in a plastic packet (about the size of a bar of soap), and it tastes exactly like cold, milky chocolate pudding. I could go on forever about food, but I want to talk about other stuff, too!

This may seem completely ridiculous, but my favorite thing about Benin thus far are the little children. Even in Cotonou, seeing a white person is a very, very rare occurance, so they become so excited to see - from a distance or right up close. In the market today, a little girl ran up to me and just wanted to touch my hand. It made her so happy her eyes tighted up and she squealed the most adorable sound I've ever heard. Our rooms are on the third floor that has a balcony that overlooks a neighboring village. It is here that I discovered my new favorite game. When a group of us white Volunteers at the balcony, the children scream "Yovo!" (which means white person). In response to there gleeful shouting, we wave, and the kids go berzerk. They completely lose there mainds. Hands in the air, feet stamping on the ground, wild head jerks - all in completely jubiliant elation. I feel like a Beatle.

Most of my first few days were spent on the compound in various lecture sessions regarding Pre Service Traning that will be starting on Wednesday. We've had lectures on health, safety, security, technical training, gender roles, and culture. There are three sectors of service in Benin that Volunteers belong to: Enviromental Action, Rural Health, Economic Development, and English Education. Most of it is preliminary and introductory, but everyone is quick to answer questions and very insightful. The lectures are hosted by Traning Volunteers, contracted PC Beninese workers, and PC Benin Staff members. We've met the acting Country Director and other administrative higher-ups over the past few days. French is the predominate language in Benin. I've tested to be intermediate (thanks Rosetta Stone and Madame Nikolic), and we have French classes in small groups (I have three in my group). My instructor's name is Abel. According to all our Training Volunteers, in three months from right now, I should be conversationally fluent in French. The idea of that is so alluring and exciting, but when I open my French books to study at night, it seems daunting.

Not that all my nights are spent studying. The compound has a small outdoor bar area with a cement enclosure, but we all line up tables outside. Beers cost less than a dollar, and most nights my fellow Volunteers and I gather after dinner and studying and lecture sessions to throw a few back and talk about our day. We've been dancing and discussing and getting to know each other. It's been lovely. All the volunteers are so interesting, worldly, and intelligent. It's great to trade stories and ideas. I'm having a great time.

Yesterday, I rode a zemidjan for the first time. A zem is a motorized bike that is the main mode of transport around the country. They are fast, quick, and efficient, and Benin is one of the few Peace Corps posts where Volunteers can ride them. However, it is easy to pick out Peace Corps Volunteers; we're required to wear helmet. No one else in Benin even thinks about wearing a helmet. The Corps takes it extremely seriously. A Volunteer can be administratively terminated on-the-spot for being caught on the back of a zem without a helmet on. Zems are taxi transport here in Benin so we got riding lessons yesterday. We are not allowed - under any circumstance - to drive a zem, but riding them will be a necessary part of our lives. They are surprising stable to ride, but completely thrilling. I love the fresh wind in my hair . . .

Tomorrow, we are leaving the compound in Cotonou and going to Porto Novo to stay with our host families for the next 9 weeks. I am so excited to meet my host family and to see another city in Benin that is supposed to be amazing. I'm having a great time, meeting tons of great people, and seeing and doing some very cool things. I'll keep in touch!

As of July 23, 2009, I officially PEACE OUT.

For the next 27 months, I will be living in Benin, West Africa, teaching ESL as a Peace Corps Volunteer. I started this blog as a way to chronicle my adventures — there is no doubt in my mind there will be some intense, harrowing, heartbreaking, side-splitting, eye-opening, soul-searching adventures. Friends and family, I'll make you a wager: if you keep reading, I'll keep writing. 

Great Expectations

I think the best possible way to attack the beast of completely uprooting my life as I've known it, packing all my belongings into a 60-pound glorified duffel bag, and moving across the Atlantic Ocean - sight unseen - to West Africa is to have as few expectations a possible. Granted, I'd safely venture to say that I know more than most 22 year-old Pennsylvanians about Benin, in so much that I can easily pick it out on a world map and probably prattle off some basic country profile statistics. But beyond that, I intend to initially treat this experience like a sponge; the goal is to remain constant and allow all the porous holes in my thinking soak up the environment, people, customs, and culture around me. However, considering I have only a few expectations, I figured I'd take this opportunity to write my first blog and share them with you.

1.  I can almost guarantee the second I step off the plane in Cotonou, I am going to take one 360 degree spin around and think to myself in a nerve-grating panic, What in the name of all that is holy have I just gotten myself into? Inevitably, my breathing will become labored, dizzying thoughts will cloud my mind, but I will press on. 

2.  I have a funny feeling that there are going to be some really basic things in my current, privileged American life that I've been taking for granted. The absence of such luxuries may become air apparent almost immediately and others will wheedle their way into my consciousness from a slow build. Either way - I'd like to take this opportunity to give some high praise and encomium to some of my favorite things:  Charmin toilet paper, mozzarella cheese, electricity, my brimming bookshelf, microwave technology, indoor plumbing,  bubble baths, wireless internet access, my washer and dryer, eye contacts, and the ability to have exhausting cell phone conversations at length whenever I want to for as long as I can remain awake. My things:  I love you; I'll miss you; I'll be back.

3.  This experience is going to change me. That's a given; I know. Like the wise, old sages of days-gone-by proclaimed, "Change is the only constant."  I have no idea what I am going to look, think, act, or feel like in two years. That's the best part in my opinion. I don't get to know what is going to happen to me. It's a giant surprise gift just waiting for me unwrap in a distant future I can't even fathom right now. The person I will become will be changed not only physically, but mentality, not only spiritually, but culturally. I'm really excited to meet that young woman. I bet she's going to have some amazing stories to tell (and with any luck, she'll be able to tell them in English or in French).

4. This will be difficult; this will be worth it.